"A love story": the play by the talented Alexis Michalik adapted to the cinema

Europe 1 with AFP 11:42 am, April 07, 2023

"Une histoire d'amour" was so successful in the theater that by adapting it to the cinema, Alexis Michalik wanted to take up a challenge: he kept the same cast, including himself. Michalik is more omnipresent than ever: his second film is released in theaters on Wednesday, four of his productions are currently playing in Paris - including the musical Les Producteurs - and he is preparing the animation of the Molières ceremony at the end of April, as well as a new play for 2024.

Created at La Scala Paris in January 2020, "Une histoire d'amour" tells the story of the romance of Justine (Marie-Camille Soyer) and Katia (Juliette Delacroix). Both attempt artificial insemination and it is Katia who becomes pregnant... before being abandoned by Justine. Twelve years later, suffering from cancer, Katia begs her brother William (Alexis Michalik), a disillusioned writer, to take care of his daughter Jeanne (Léontine d'Oncieu).

"A huge gift"

The idea of keeping the same cast sounds simple, but the 40-year-old director was so worried about not getting funding that he initially hid the project from the actors of the play. "I told them I was going to take other actresses, I didn't want to disappoint them," he told AFP. "They all come from the theater but a role in the cinema, we all dream of it. It's a huge gift," says Alexis Michalik, who has played several roles on the big screen. "We are happy... And afterwards, we are freaked out because we want to be up to it," he smiles.

Without a star on the bill, the playwright, one of the most acclaimed of the last decade, managed to make this film thanks to his own production company and by obtaining the support of one of the most important independent French distribution companies "Le pacte", France 2 and Canal+. He had experienced the opposite course with "Edmond", which he had first dreamed of in film for 15 years. For lack of funding, he turned to the theater to tell the difficult creation of "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Edmond Rostand.

>> READ ALSO - Alexis Michalik, the working secrets of a theatre ogre

The play written after a breakup

It is the triumph of the play that will consecrate Michalik and make the film possible: since 2016, it has been performed at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris without interruption (excluding the pandemic), and will soon be premiered in Spanish in Buenos Aires. The film was released in 2018. Michalik, who wrote "A Love Story" after a breakup, plays through the film with the chronology of the play but his touch is well recognizable: a concentrate of narration and emotion, but also humor, as soon as the scenes become too sad.

"I don't like to throw people into discomfort. I like that we commune in an emotion, that we laugh and cry at the same time, "says the director. Still saying he is "hyperactive" but more peaceful for years, the playwright awarded several Molières is preparing a new play on refugees. Not to fall into politics, but always for the sake of a narrative "that can surprise the public". "I have always made formats of less than two hours, very rhythmic, which can speak to an audience that has never set foot in a theater," says the one whose plays are often played in small gauges.

"It's crazy, it's unexpected"

In a world giving pride of place to series, the Franco-British - his English mother Pamela Hargreaves translated some of his works performed in 2019 in Great Britain - has always been a fan of "drawer pieces", "stories that summon several eras and twists". He had his first success with "Le Porteur d'histoire" (2011) when he was only 28 years old and this play is still playing at the Théâtre des Béliers Parisiens. "It's crazy, it's unexpected," he said.