TS Spivet: The ambitious film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet which did not deserve to be a flop (review)

Passed unnoticed in 2013, this ambitious film shot in the United States with Helena Bonham Carter returns to television this evening.

Distributed by Gaumont, The Extravagant Journey of the Young and Prodigious TS Spivet only attracted 676,969 spectators in October 2013 in French cinemas, before flopping in the United States, its promotion being completely sacrificed by Harvey Weinstein. Jean-Pierre Jeunet had also publicly complained about the producer, well before the sexual assault affair which broke out in 2017.

However, this film did not lack ambition, the director of Fabulous destiny of Amélie Poulain surrounding itself with talented actors and a qualified technical team to offer an adventure at the cutting edge of technology, as Première wrote when defending it in its review. On the occasion of its rebroadcast, this evening on Arte, we are republishing it below.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet accuses Harvey Weinstein of the failure of his last film

A little context: at the end of the 2000s, Micmacs of the director had disappointed, and he decided to return to the United States to film his new project in 3D, more than sixteen years later Alien: The Resurrection. Here is the odyssey of TS, 12 years old, a young scientific prodigy (Kyle Catlett), son of a cowboy and an entomologist (Helena Bonham-Carter), whose new invention has just received a prize in Washington. He leaves the family farm in Montana for a journey across the United States, through improbable encounters and perilous ordeals. With its western atmosphere and its childish heroism which recalled, among other things, the Moonrise Kingdom of Wes AndersonJeunet distanced himself sharply from his French productions, even if we saw the faithful Dominique Pinon in a few scenes.

Following the flop of the film, Jeunet turned to television, but there too, success was not there: his pilot Casanova, shot for Amazon, was ultimately not developed into a series. And his sci-fi film for Netflix, Big Bug, was also shunned by critics. All the details can be read here:

Jean-Pierre Jeunet has fun with the revolt of the machines in BigBug

Our review of TS Spivet : “Jean-Pierre Jeunet has changed his director of photography, but his style is recognizable from the first shot. Greens, yellows and reds dominate, as do the very composed wide-angle framing, all in a totally vintage post-western atmosphere. The tone, a mixture of melancholy and humor, also recalls the heyday of Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain and D’A long engagement Sundayaccomplished films which preceded the hitch Micmacs.

An outstanding visual artist, the French filmmaker adds a nuance to his already varied palette: 3D. Never, since Hugo Cabret And Life of Pithe relief had never been rendered in such an immersive and coherent way, with the subject – the reality of T.S. is a little distorted. But this overabundance of goods is paradoxically detrimental to the film, whose dramatic springs are as if broken by the heavy machinery put in place and by a redundant voice-over.

The heart of the story – its relationship to mourning and the complexity of filial ties – beats only intermittently, through a shot of the father finally being demonstrative or another showing the sister in tears. The ambition of the staging, the homogeneity of the casting, however, encourages us to board the train with little TS Spivet.”

Trailer :

Jean-Pierre Jeunet: “There is as much cinema on Netflix as anywhere else”