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Tout Va Bien - English title: Everything Is Fine

It's a French 8-episode drama about a family whose child has leukemia - basically it's a study on how people deal with grief.

This show is amazingly well-written. I read a few interviews and it turns out that screen-writer and producer Camille de Castelnau's niece had leukemia, and that explains the incredible realism both concerning hospital routine and emotions.

It stars Virginie Efira, Sara Girardeau, and Nicole Garcia. (And Mehdi Nebbou.)

What I personally loved about it is how calmly everything flows. The situation itself is so horrible, there's no need for added dramatics. The hospital routine, the facts, the medical details, it all speaks for itself. You can clearly see the cracks appearing in all the characters, but there's barely any shouting, there are barely any tears except for characters crying quietly when they're alone, there are no major fights. Everyone is high-strung and weighed down to their breaking point, but it's never exploited for shock value.

Is this a rec? Yes! Although there's one major thing I did not like.

Does it have a happy ending:

ending spoilers

I'm double-spoiler-cutting this. Unfortunately, yes. The show sets up this extremely painful and realistic family drama about a child dying, and then the child does not die at the end. This annoyed me very very much, because they completely robbed us of that well-earned katharsis of how life could have continued after Rose's death. Fuck Disney. Ymmv.

Where can I watch it? It's on hulu and Disney+.

non-spoilery character screencaps

Rose in the hospital, getting her blood transplant

Tout Va Bien - Marion and Stephane

Marion and Stephane - Rose's parents, struggling to cope

Tout Va Bien - Antonio and Claire

Claire, Marion's sister and Rose's aunt, with her boyfriend Antonio

Tout Va Bien - Lou and her mother

Antonio's ex-wife with their daughter Lou, about whom she's fighting a custody battle

Tout Va Bien - Vincent

Vincent - Rose's uncle (the youngesst of the three children) and steward for an airline

Tout Va Bien - Vincent hates hospitals

Vincent hates hospitals, but can't turn down the requests for his help

Tout Va Bien - Anne and Pascal

Anne, Rose's grandmother and famous author, always working, and her husband Pascal

Tout Va Bien - Louis

Louis, Marion's secret affair - yes that is Mehdi Nebbou and I watched the whole thing for him

Tout Va Bien - the psychologist

the hospital psychologist, one of my favorite characters, she gives the best advice

my comments (also non-spoilery)

* What makes this series so brilliant is that each character deals with the situation in their own way, and I found it realistic that even within one family, the approaches of every person would be different.

* Rose herself, despite being a young girl, is shown in a way that I could empathize with. She's not the unfortunate carrier that causes all the problems but is herself unaffected. She's afraid but cautiously optimistic, sometimes dead tired, sometimes annoying, sometimes happy. All very normal, I thought.

* The mother, Marion, strikes up an anonymous (mostly sexual) relationship with a man she meets in the parking lot of the hospital, just to get away from everything for a little while.

* The uncle, Vincent, has a phobia of hospitals and the whole situation gives him panic attacks. His life as a steward for an airline - complete with "a girl in every port" - slowly falls apart. He's probably the most cruelly affected by the story. <3

* The younger sister, Leonie, is acting up because her parents are focused mostly on her dying sister - and because she's losing her sister, of course.

* The father, Stephane, is probably the single underdeveloped character in the show. He only gets a few scenes with his wife and daughter, and one scene at work, and that's it. The women are by far better developd (and I can't say I minded).

* The grandmother, Anne, is a famous author of self-help books and tries to push her "helpful" attitude on everyone around her, including Rose.

* The aunt, Claire, tries to deal with the tragedy by taking on as many tasks as she can, to help in any way she can, neglecting everyone else in favor of Rose (and her sister Marion).

* Plus, a lot of the characters are grieving about more than one thing:

** Anne is confronted with the fact that her editor and long-time lover has been sexually abusing other clients of his and his image and company are imploding.

** Claire is dealing with the custody battle for her boyfriend Antonio's daughter, and struggling with her inability to connect with that girl, Lou. Lou herself also acts out sometimes due to the conflict between her divorced parents.

** The ex-wife of Antonio is mourning her failed relationship and tries to sabotage his new happiness in every way she can.

** The grandfather, Pascal, is mourning his own relationship (his wife cheating on him with her editor for years) and getting older and not being needed by anyone.

* All of this is marvellously interwoven and sometimes it's like watching a train-wreck in slow motion. Nobody knows how the cancer will progress/react, and everyone is caught in their own bubble, unable to escape.

* A minor nitpick is that some of the supporting characters are a little 'too supportive'. Louis, Marion's secret lover, doesn't seem to have his own goals and seemingly just exists to support Marion. Antonio, Claire's boyfriend, has an endless amount of patience for both Claire and his ex-wife. Alice, one of Vincent's girlfriends, becomes part of the family and gives him far more love than their casual relationship warrants.

* I personally loved the hospital psychologist - a family therapist who gets to say a lot of the best lines.

* In general, there are quite a few amazing lines of dialogue. Like when the grandmother says (about herself) "it's so hard to watch your daughter suffer and not being able to help" - like, no shit, Anne, you selfish ass! Or when Louis says "the palliative care unit is no place for clowns" and Marion answers, "it's no place for children." Or the editor, explaining to Anne why he never assaulted her, "because I never needed to." Or when Marion says to her husband that "without her hair, she looks even more like you." There are so many good lines of dialogue in this, those are just the ones that I remember off the top of my head.

* Last but not least, I would never have watched this if Mehdi Nebbou wasn't in it. He has a much bigger role than I'd expected - probably the biggest non-family-member role in the show - and it was very very much worth watching it for him. But I ended up loving the show for its amazing writing, and I can absolutely rec it on its own merits, Mehdi or no.

Jasper is currently resting comfortably with me checking on him frequently to make sure he doesn't scratch his eye area or need anything. In exchange he doesn't have to wear the cone.

So far he's being a real trooper about it just like last time. I really do think cats understand English and he understood my explanations of what was happening.

The opthalmologist took out everything they could and hopefully the biopsy will show the cancer not all the way through the removed tissue.

Ian gets paid in ten minutes so we don't have to worry about not having enough money for groceries/expenses after that.

The above picture is of Jasper at our vet the day we went to understand his diagnosis.

Besides Jasper I've mostly been reading fanfiction and making sure the other three cats aren't jealous of the attention Jasper's getting.

The headache I've had for days is getting better. And I'm glad the cancer cells are hopefully out of my cat.

Three weeks or so we should know for sure.

Which will put us in July. Hopefully after the anniversary of the cat who's death still feels fresh rather than almost a year ago.

Anyway Jasper is asleep and safe for now. I'm going to go back to reading fanfiction mostly about Harry Potter being raised by his godfather. Sometimes with manipulative Dumbledore... They are my weakness.

fandom 10 in 30

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Friday Five

Fannish Fifty #32: 72 Multifandom questions part 5

French tv rec: Tout Va Bien ("Everything Is Fine")

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