MY STUPID DOG MOVIE. In Mon Chien Stupide, Yvan Attal and his partner in the city Charlotte Gainsbourg embody a family that welcomes a dog that will not leave them unmoved, to say the least.
[Mis à jour le 6 mars 2022 à 21h] Broadcast on France 2 this Sunday March 6, 2022, My Stupid Dog is a film by Yvan Attal who at the time found his wife Charlotte Gainsbourg at the cinema in front of and behind the camera. In the film, he plays a character who has a lot of trouble training his dog. Indeed, in My Stupid Dog, the animal that gives the film its title is also one of the main characters. Smelly, fat and stupid, he will give this family a hard time in the midst of chaos as much as he will soften the character of Yvan Attal. For those who wonder about the breed of the dog, the animal is none other than a Neapolitan mastiff.
In My stupid dog, released on October 30, 2019, Yvan Attal shares the poster with his companion in the city Charlotte Gainsbourg. This feature film is the free French adaptation of a novel by the American John Fante. The public can discover there a man, in full crisis of the fifties, whose family life and the couple are put to the test by the arrival of a dog. If the end differs from the book and the story is transposed in 2019, this adaptation takes up the reflections of the book: how can a couple survive the passage of time, the midlife crisis and everyday life?
Synopsis – Henri is in the middle of a midlife crisis. Those responsible for his failures, his lack of libido and his back pain? His wife and four children, of course! At a time when he is making a critical assessment of his life, of all the women he will no longer have, of the cars he will not drive, a huge badly brought up and obsessed dog decides to settle in the house, to his greatest happiness but to the great displeasure of the rest of the family and especially of Cécile, his wife whose unfailing love begins to crack.
But what did critics think of My Stupid Dog when it was released? Overall, they are very divided. On the side of the positive opinions, we retain a feature film with dark and scathing humor, which gives food for thought. For Le Parisien, it is “an amazing film that gives food for thought”, while Le Point underlines “a black comedy, gritty and politically incorrect”. It is above all the characters, carried by actors of choice, which seduce, Télé 7 jours praising “deeply endearing characters”. Télé-Loisir is even more dithyrambic: “crazy, grating, subtle, touching. In a word: brilliant”. But this concert of praise is not unanimous among the French media. Other media are quick to say they are disappointed. Le Figaro deplores “a depressing film about depression”. Télérama is much more of a killer: for the cultural media, only Charlotte Gainsbourg is to be saved in this “sluggish adaptation of John Fante”.
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The last time they shared the poster at the cinema was in 2016 for They are everywhere. Three years later, Yvan Attal and Charlotte Gainsbourg continue their professional collaboration in My Stupid Dog. Asked by Elle magazine, the actress also concedes that the fictional story of Henri and Cécile partly reflects the one she has lived with her companion since 1990: “When you spend thirty years with someone, there is necessarily ups and downs,” she said. Yvan Attal and Charlotte Gainsbourg met on the set of In the eyes of the world, by Eric Rochant. And since then, they have not left each other, not hesitating to play together in the cinema. In the past, the two actors had played a couple in My wife is an actress Where They got married and had many childrentwo films by Yvan Attal.
Also director of My Stupid Dog, the 44-year-old actor likes to pass in front of and behind the camera, not hesitating to question the life of a couple and feelings, subjects he regularly addresses in his films alongside His wife. For the first time, moreover, their son, Ben, plays alongside them in the film, playing the eldest of the family. A dynamic both professional and family with which the Attal-Gainsbourg couple manages to compose. Charlotte Gainsbourg also explains to Le Soir that playing under the direction of her companion can add a certain pressure: “With Yvan, there is the desire to seduce even more than another director, to convince him much more. If he has an ounce of admiration, I’ve won it all!”