“We exchange ideas and points of view for the common good”… Jérôme Commandeur praises the choral film

“The choral film works because everyone can relate to it,” declares Jérôme Commandeur. There is always a character we feel close to, who corresponds to us.” The actor, director and screenwriter demonstrates this in You haven’t changed. He brings together Vanessa Paradis, Laurent Lafitte and François Damiens as high school friends who meet again after the death of a member of their little gang from the past.

“I thought of several films like Friends first by Lawrence Kasdan, Peter’s Friends by Kenneth Branagh or My best friends by Jean-Marie Poiré, he confides. I like the mixture of not always tender humor and sometimes amusing bitterness that emerges. These films do not say that things were better before: they evoke the past without hiding its difficulties.” His group of friends who settle their scores thirty years after their baccalaureate bring the 1990s back to life with a touch of ferocity but above all a lot of humor in collaboration with co-writer Kevin Knepper.

United and dissimilar

“The choral film is an immediate representation of our lives,” insists Jérôme Commandeur. Without really explaining why, I see this genre as including more of a group of friends than a family. I like the idea of ​​people who were close at one point in their lives.” This is the case for its three heroes among whom Vanessa Paradis evolves with infinite grace. “We all come from different backgrounds with our working methods which are not the same,” explains Jérôme Commandeur. These differences bring color to our compositions as if we were in the position of heroes, both united and dissimilar.

Everyone finds well-defined roles with fine-tuned dialogue. We have a weakness for the singer played by Laurent Lafitte but everyone finds their place without the others pulling the rug for themselves. “This is the rule of choral films, a generous genre,” declares Jérôme Commandeur. There is something liberating about this because we share the weight of responsibility for the film. We exchange ideas and points of view for the common good.” Its staging envelops the group for which the spectator immediately feels a strong sympathy, a bit as if Jérôme Commandeur was inviting us to be part of it.

Place of great men

“The protagonists reveal themselves in their relationship with each other,” explains Jérôme Commandeur. For example, we have all been around guys like the one I play who are a little mistreated by those around him because he is too nice and systematically helps. This archetype is one of the tastiest in a well-crafted generational comedy. “Fifty is an age when you are supposed to have become wiser,” he says. We wanted to show the vulnerability of fifty-somethings, between a rock in the shoe and a downright dent. And we therefore chose to confront them with an event which reminds them of their mortality and forces them to think about it.”

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A vibrant soundtrack is one of the successful ingredients of You haven’t changed. Jérôme Commandeur admits to having thought about Place of great men, the cult title of Patrick Bruel by writing this touching film without ever being mawkish. “I don’t regret my young years, but I regret their relative carelessness,” explains Jérôme Commandeur. I tell myself that I was lucky to have experienced them during this period and it makes me feel a form of happy nostalgia. I wanted to share it even with people younger or older than me. I think this feeling is universal.”