Fiasco Review 2024 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
A new mockumentary series revolving around a calamitous film shoot serves as an inadvertent tribute to Eleanor Coppola, the late filmmaker who died earlier this month and is remembered for capturing the behind-the-scenes chaos of Apocalypse Now. But the latter seems like a veritable stroll in the jungle next to the disasters that derail director Raphaël Valande’s first feature in FiascoThis diverting French comedy follows the misfortunes of a fictional aspiring auteur as his hotly anticipated debut descends into carnage. Having secured funding and big-name stars with his screenplay about his Resistance-fighter grandmother, thirtysomething Raphaël (Pierre Niney) quickly proves to be more competent on paper than he is with people or behind the camera. Within the first week of filming, he manages to lose his investment, his leading man (a short-but-sweet cameo from Vincent Cassel) and his mind.
Compounding the director’s excruciating awkwardness is the presence of a mysterious saboteur. When Raphaël makes a maladroit speech denouncing sexism on set, someone among the cast and crew leaks the video, causing a PR storm. Other humiliations soon follow — from stunt accidents to disastrous media appearances and ill-timed food poisoning — leaving Raphaël (according to a poll of his Instagram followers) less popular than Stalin. Later, an unexpected link between the production and a different tyrant gives him another headache and something of an identity crisis.
As a Netflix comedy set within the world of French cinema, it’s tempting to see this series as a successor to the magnificent, much-missed Call My Agent!. Yet with its abundance of cringe and documentary structure, Fiasco is more reminiscent of The Office, while the giddy silliness recalls classic backstage farces such as Michael Frayn’s Noises Off and Mel Brooks’ The Producers.
There is a touch too of early Woody Allen in Niney’s nervy, nebbishy turn. The series co-creator (with Igor Gotesman) as well as the star, he leads an excellent ensemble that delivers consistent laughs through sharp dialogue, puerile slapstick, throwaway one-liners and long-gestating punchlines.What’s missing, however, is humour that specifically derives from the mercurial, often absurd art of filmmaking and the kind of people it attracts. While there are a few jokes at the expense of method actors and the PR circus — and one black-humoured gag involving product placement in a Holocaust scene — the show is generally more interested in playing with the documentary format than skewering the wider movie industry.
Then again, a show aimed more at those in-the-know might have risked alienating viewers in the way that fellow Frenchman Olivier Assayas’s insidery cinema satire Irma Vep did when it aired on HBO to little audience enthusiasm in 2022. Fiasco, by contrast, is accessible and entertaining enough potentially to become Netflix’s next big francophone hit.
