Jerry Seinfeld, Louis CK, Larry David (and his navel) or Eric Judor with
Plane tree, comedians like to play with their fictional double, namely the worst of themselves but the best for the public. After having imposed herself on the stage of her shows but also of ceremonies (César, Molières), in memorable secondary roles in the cinema (20 years apart, Problemos), Blanche Gardin returns to television in a series, in the form of autofiction and documentary, broadcast from Monday evening on Canal + and available in full on MyCanal.
She had already illustrated herself in Inside Jamel Comedy Club, Working Girls or, for the most fans, White line on Comedy, but, there, that’s what she calls and title The best version of myself. You only need to know a little of his humor to grasp the irony, and to know that it will be above all the best of the worst. Because Blanche Gardin stops humor.
Contemporary narcissism
Indeed, the comedian suffers from terrible digestive disorders, and her meeting with a naturopath makes her realize that the self-mockery she shows every night on stage is rotting her from the inside. It must stop and take a new path, between positive thinking, the quest for well-being… and bad faith.
The first episodes (out of nine), sluggish, clumsy, also uneasy (we only talk about poo), are used to sort out the viewers, but the survivors will be rewarded with a (self) portrait between their character on stage And the one of Problemos, and by a journey through the various questions, obsessions, injunctions of society, what Blanche Gardin calls, in the press kit, “contemporary narcissism”.
“I ask questions but I do not answer them”
“God is dead and we ourselves become our own prophets to be worshiped, our disciples to be guided to the right path, our victims to be pitied,” she also wrote. Thinking against the times does not necessarily mean devaluing it. “Anti-feminicide poster glitters, a circle of women, connection to nature, DNA test on its” origins “, staging on social networks … The series takes hold of a number of current subjects but without wishing to lecture, or to criticize such feminism or progressivism. On the contrary, she shows “a” Blanche Gardin as trapped, next to the plate. “For me, making people laugh is asking serious questions,” she wrote.
I ask questions but I do not answer them. “
The best version of myself makes you laugh, of course, as it can also make you uncomfortable, go around in circles, get lost in a bit, far from the surrealistic outings of a Plane tree or the comic mechanics of a Larry and his navel. Maybe because, as revealed Telerama, the series was largely self-funded and improvised. But that’s also what makes it unique.