We were waiting for him around the corner.
With "I promise you", TF1 adapts the excellent American series "This Is Us".
This fiction, about a family united around different dramas over the past forty years, prefers to bet on the humanity of the characters than on any detective plot.
By taking the original plot and placing it in a French context, this new series, which starts at 9:05 pm on Monday, touches the heart and its success owes nothing to chance.
A team of enthusiasts.
“I discovered
This Is Us
at a particularly difficult time in my life and this series consoled me.
I immediately wanted to adapt it in France to share this story ”, remembers Aline Panel, the producer.
“We both loved the original series, also assures Brigitte Bémol, writing director with her sidekick Julien Simonet.
It is magical, because it entertains at the same time as it comforts and brings together.
The challenge for us was to keep the soul of the series, and then find our creative space there, by injecting our French neuroses into it.
"
A titanic job.
“We first laid everything down because we only have twelve episodes for this first season against eighteen in the American version,” emphasizes Julien Simonet.
So we start from the same base, then we condense, we take other paths to arrive at the same place.
"
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"I promise you": on the set of French TF1 "This Is Us"
In order to achieve the end result, the writing director duo collaborated with other authors.
“We were lucky to be able to choose them,” enthuses Julien Simonet.
“As we knew things about their lives, we gave them episodes where there were resonances with their personal experiences,” says Brigitte Bémol.
Characters who reflect us.
A handsome kid who never really feels legitimate, a too fat woman who can't stand her body, a talented and black trader in a very white environment… Each character of “I promise you” gives off something that we can identify with .
"We are talking about the feeling of not feeling in the right place," says producer Aline Panel.
We all had this feeling one day.
It starts in the family, then it evolves in society.
"" This is where the series is universal, insists Brigitte Bémol.
We are talking about integration at all levels, the message is that we should not be afraid of the difference of the other.
"
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A very French painting.
For Aline Panel, "the great francization concerns first of all the dialogues".
"We have adapted to French psychology which is much more modest, with less grand speeches and more humor", confirms Brigitte Bémol.
“The setting is also French in its global context, with the election of Mitterrand for example, but also in detail, with the chocolate bars of the time, powdered fruit juices, etc.
One of the characters is a footballer at OM while in
This Is Us
, he was an actor in sitcoms (
Editor's note: television comedies
), it is much more telling for our audience, ”explains Julien Simonet for his part.
And his sidekick continues: “The treatment of issues of abortion or post-colonial immigration are our own.
"
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Music in tune.
Johnny Hallyday, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Renaud, Véronique Sanson… The great French singers are honored throughout the series.
“It is inferred from the title.
I chose
I promise you
because it's Johnny's most downloaded song and he's an intergenerational artist, ”says Aline Panel.
"Each episode has its own song in echo or in opposition to what is happening on the screen, which we have selected from the screenplay", continues Brigitte Bémol.
Famous faces and revelations.
All the creative work upstream is enhanced by the performances of the actors.
Marilou Berry, Hugo Becker or Camille Lou confirm all the good that we already thought of them.
Alongside them, Guillaume Labbé (who will also be seen soon on France 2 in the “30 Vies” series) and Narcisse Mame (who shared the poster with the previous one in the “Trauma” series, broadcast on 13th Street) shine. also.
The casting director Gérard Moulévrier, in the business for nearly forty years, took between three and four months to bring together the whole band of adult actors, supported by another team for the choice of children.
He claims not to have been influenced by the American series that he did not know.
“We made different choices.
The woman played by Marilou Berry, for example, is not as obese as that of
This Is Us
”.
We owe him in particular the development of nuggets like Bass Dhem - "I have been around him for thirty years, he really has something" - or Léonie Simaga - "I knew her at the conservatory, she spent six years at the French comedy ".
Difficult to have a favorite as this large fictional family is so convincing.
EDITOR'S RATING: 4.5 / 5
“I promise you”
, French series adapted by Aline Panel, Brigitte Bémol and Julien Simonet (2021).
With Camille Lou, Hugo Becker, Marilou Berry, Guillaume Labbé, Narcisse Mame… Episodes 1 and 2 (out of 12) this Monday on TF1 and on Salto (48 and 53 minutes).