Bruno and Albert have endless debts. The first works and lives at the Charles de Gaulle Roissy airport in Paris and secretly sells the items confiscated there. The second is in a deep depression after a separation and foreclosure on his house. The two join a group of climate activists more out of opportunism than conviction.
Four years after “Everything Except Ordinary”, the successful directing duo Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (“Pretty Best Friends”) are back with their latest film “Black Friday for Future”. After dealing with disabilities and autistic young people, their topic is now ecology, or more precisely: saving the planet, which humans are destroying through unbridled consumption.
Bruno (Jonathan Cohen) and Albert (Pio Marmaï) obviously react more sensitively to free beer, chips and Cactus (Noémie Merlant), the code name of the group’s leader, than to the revolution. More out of politeness, the two attend conferences and accept the nicknames Chick and Lexo. The film trio works excellently.
To please Cactus, Bruno and Albert become more and more involved: they smear the steps of the Trocadéro in Paris with red paint, occupy the Bank of France, block traffic, and hold up a plane on the runway before takeoff.
The social comedy begins with an amusing montage of New Year’s speeches in which France’s former presidents emphasize how difficult the past year was or the one ahead will be. “Une année difficile” (A Difficult Year) is also the original name of the comedy. Then a lot of action begins: A department store is stormed because of Black Friday, which the group actually wanted to prevent.
For the film, Toledano and Nakache worked with activists from the radical environmental movement Rebellion Against Extinction. Some were consulted during the filming and also acted as extras.
“Black Friday for Future” is the successful combination of popular and political cinema – even if the story about destructive capitalism is sometimes a bit naive in its presentation. True to themselves and their style, the directors embed the major problems of our ultra-liberal society in a light-hearted and original comedy that does not contain cynicism.
“Black Friday for Future”, France, 2023, 120 min., FSK from 12, by Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, with Jonathan Cohen, Pio Marmaï, Noémie Merlant
