«Everybody loves Jeanne»: the pleasures of depression

For her first feature film, Céline Devaux is right on target. Through the character of Jeanne Mayer, superbly played by Blanche Gardin, the director delivers a dark comedy based on difficult themes. But is it really possible to take such a light-hearted approach to depression without betraying it?

Jeanne Mayer heads an ecological project designed to extract plastic from the oceans. However, her world premiere was a complete failure. Short of cash, she leaves for Lisbon to sell her mother's apartment, which she had sold a year earlier to her mother who had committed suicide. In the midst of her difficulties, Jean (Laurent Laffite), a quirky and shameless former classmate, also seems pursued by his own demons.

Depression is a sensitive theme for cinema, since it necessarily raises two questions: how can we show what is not visible? and how can we share with the public what usually drives people away? Everyone loves Jeanne responds by making the right choices.

Filming depression

To answer the first question, we tend to applaud films that play with innuendo, develop metaphors and rely on subtle acting to reveal the implacable allure of death through the smallest of details. Everyone loves Jeanne makes a different choice. He often favors a welcome playfulness over ponderous drama. In many scenes, we hear Jeanne's cynical thoughts, which she produces as much as she endures. This voice allows us to discover the link between her activities and her eco-anxiety, or it reveals the insane energy that depression can mobilize to attempt the smallest activity. This method may be criticized for lacking originality - it's more about hearing than seeing - but it's its simplicity that makes it so effective. 

In addition, the film contains numerous animated sequences. These are often very short, and systematically illustrate our heroine's thoughts, ideas and hang-ups. This is the film's touch of originality, since these animations bear the identity of the director, who created them herself.

At the same time, this is the only criticism to be levelled at the film: these moments of animation are too often content to illustrate what is already illustrated by Jeanne's voice, which we hear through Blanche Gardin's acting or simply by the staging of the situation. These moments, which are intended to be the most introspective and original, are ultimately the least interesting. Perhaps with a team dedicated to this aspect, the film would have benefited from greater risk-taking. We would have liked it to be more than a crutch for a well-balanced work. But it does provide a number of effective gags and a few touching moments.

Depression in everyday life

For many, cinema is an art of escape. The theater plunged into darkness, the living room lit only by our screen, space always tends to disappear to facilitate immersion in its fictional universe. The spectator forgets his problems, extirpates himself from his everyday life and lets himself be drawn into a whirlwind of phantasmagoria. We sometimes come to believe that to appreciate the moment, we need to get as far away from our everyday lives as possible. In view of these beliefs, it would be salutary to flee Everyone loves Jeanne which plunges us into the heart of what we'd like to escape: failure, loneliness, grief. And yet...

And yet, we come away from the film with a certain joy and the feeling that all our sorrows have been somewhat reabsorbed. We sometimes forget that cinema is also an art of empathy. Of course, we can become attached to its characters. But it can also give us the impression of understanding ourselves. Jeanne's voice, in its simplicity, is universal. The anxieties that pursue her are those that inhabit us all. This is where the device is at its most playful: describing this everyday life not only allows us to understand the character, but also gives us the illusion of understanding ourselves, the spectators. All our problems are immediately shared: the cinema relieves us, and we thank it for it.

Everyone loves Jeanne is not a film about depression, but about overcoming it. Nor is it a film about grief, but about overcoming it. Even less a film about loneliness, but about affection. The result is a simple, well-balanced film, always intelligent enough not to indulge in mawkish idealism, and always sincere enough not to turn its cynicism into an end in itself.

Write to the author: jordi.gabioud@leregardlibre.com

You've just read an open-access article. Debates, analysis, cultural news: subscribe to support us and get access to all our content!

Photo credits: © Les Films du Worso - O som e a furia