Yannick [2023]

 Yannick, Quentin Dupieux’s sharp and subversive cultural satire – and one of two films that he made this year alongside the surrealist farce Daaaaaalí! – packed considerable punch despite its unassuming setup and narrative brevity. It touched upon the relationship between art/artistes and the audience – especially the unsaid and sacrosanct social contract that one enters into while partaking in that relationship – and the exponential rise of boorish trolls, who’d like nothing more than to heckle, disrupt and even cancel anything that offends their sensibilities. This darkly funny, impishly acrid and brilliantly staged work, therefore, also emerged as remarkably topical. The compact chamber-piece, ensconced nearly completely within a small Parisian theatre, starts off with a play in progress – a domestic dramedy called “Le Cocu”, featuring a self-effacing ménage à trois and being performed by three actors (Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin and Sébastien Chassagne) – watched by a spattering of audience. The show, however, is brought to an awkward halt by the eponymous Yannick (Raphaël Quenard), a watchman at a night parking, who’s taken a rare day off and travelled a fair bit in order to catch it. He’d come expecting to forget his personal woes and be entertained; however, upon finding it despairing instead of uplifting, he interrupts the play to express his indignation, unbothered by the mix of bemusement, irritation and anger that it elicits. And, upon realizing that his outrage isn’t being taken seriously, he decides to take control of the situation in the most unexpectedly absurdist manner. Led by an incredible turn by Quenard as the neurotic working-class anti-hero – ridiculous, exasperating, amusing and vulnerable in turns – this irreverent little gem certainly doesn’t run the risk of not being enjoyable enough.

Director: Quentin Dupieux

Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire

Language: French

Country: France