The starting point of Tout va bien is extremely simple and devilishly effective, since it tells the daily life of an ordinary family, with its neuroses, its secrets and its conflicts, confronted with the serious illness of one of its children : incurable leukemia. From the outset, the tone is radical, the first scene showing us the French's favorite daughter-in-law, Virginie Efira, busting a clown in a fit of incomprehensible violence that one would almost believe was taken from the film It!
Chronicle of a death foretold A little preamble advice for series laymen: if the titles of the 8 episodes of Tout va bien are often nicely thought out, especially don't watch them in advance at the risk of seeing the twist revealed final, a little too Disney for once. This is one of the biggest drawbacks of a series that is nevertheless stingy with false notes which succeeds in marvelously transcribing the random absurdity of life. A sort of French This is Us, Camille de Castelnau’s creation has everything from the “feel good” cathartic tear-jerking series that feels good. A choral work (in front of and behind the camera) which rings true at the same time, Tout va bien is above all Machiavellianly well written. With its title to be taken with irony, it speaks to us about us and this hierarchy of pain specific to each person. She questions us about our own way of facing illness by reminding us of the truth that there is no right method. Everyone manages as best they can. Often badly, but always with more or less sincerity. Little Rose's family is sufficiently archetypal for us to be able to project ourselves easily, and at the same time look at it with the distance necessary to laugh at it. Because the series avoids the trap of pathos and that’s so much the better. The result is episodes that are at once sad, funny and bright, while yet, at the end of each episode, we wait to know if/when little Rose will die...
Women, I love you Carried by a trio of actresses at their best: Virginie Efira (Rose's aunt), Sara Giraudeau (her mother) and Nicole Garcia (her grandmother), the series proves to be as much an ode to matriarchy and sorority as autopsy of a family crisis. The men are a bit left behind in this story. Only the character of the clown (Mehdi Nebbou) manages to manage the child/illness confrontation more or less well. But after all, it's his job or at least his priesthood. We also regret that the series does not focus more on him. The other male characters struggle a lot and Tout va bien avoids judging them. They have more trouble, that's all: just an observation. Implicitly, she also evokes #Metoo, the freedom to dispose of one's body and the exceptional hospital staff, largely female, at the Robert-Debré hospital. However, she is not a feminist. She just distils to us, episode after episode, this little truth that often women, even the most frail, can be very strong. While little male cowardices are legion. Even among the least frail.
Everything is going well, or almost An obvious success, Everything is going well is not without its faults. Disney pulled out all the stops for this series, and unfortunately, it's a bit to its detriment. It has that little something sanitized like a hospital. Certainly, the family of actors is wonderful, but sounds a little false, even caricatured in its Germanopratin aspects. We would have liked there to be a stronger risk-taking with the characters and especially that the casting was not so obviously bankable. The pleasure of a series is also to introduce us to new faces. Like when in 2015, The Office of Legends, a series written by Éric Rochant and (among others) Camille de Castelnau, introduced us to the talent of a complete unknown: Sarah Giraudeau… 