With Les Vedettes, the Palmashow reinvents itself (review)

Grégoire Ludig and David Marsais play Daniel and Stéphane, two lost losers who end up finding each other, in this film by Jonathan Barré.

Over the course of its ten-year career, the Palmashow trio has been able to renew its ideas. Moving from Youtube to television, the artists finally arrived on the big screen in 2016 with their first film The Mad Adventure of Max and Léon. First feature for a team accustomed to short formats, Max and Leon confirms the success of the Palmashow. And after a return to YouTube and notable appearances in cinema for others, the trio returned to directing at the start of 2022 with The stars. A comedy to watch again this evening on TMC, followed by a best-of of their sketches.

Les Vedettes: “Need to sing”, the crazy clip from the film

Signed Jonathan Barré, this one is a continuation of the Palmashow sketches. We find the favorite actors of the trio (Julien Pestel, Sixtine Aupetit), and characters that one might think escaped from one of their videos. Stéphane (David Marsais) and Daniel (Grégoire Ludig). One is employee of the month in a household appliances store, while the other wants to be a singer without succeeding. Two complete opposites who hate each other but end up attracting each other when Daniel has the opportunity to participate in a famous TV game show. Taking Stéphane with him, the duo set out to conquer the French audiovisual sector, against all odds. If all this is reminiscent of the Palmashow sketches and gives the impression of being faced with a banal repetition, this is not the case. From their sketches, The stars only retained the form. The moral of the story lies elsewhere.

Because beneath their silly appearance, Daniel and Stéphane are in truth very constructed, and demonstrate the maturity of the trio at the helm. A little on the margins, these two figures of looseness are never mocked. Daniel and Stéphane, by their marginality, make the others strange and that is where the intelligence of the film lies.

Revenge of the “France below”new emblem of losers: The stars is a sort of second first film. Music, humor, emotion: everything is measured, and you can feel it. Only downside: the production which, for the time being, struggles to get out of the spotlight of the Palmashow as invited to do so more spontaneously The Mad Adventure of Max and Léon. There is therefore ample room for improvement for the third opus of the merry band.

Les Vedettes: “We learned from Quentin Dupieux on Mandibles”