We owe him the unmissable success of The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain, as well asA long engagement Sunday. And more recently, it is on Netflix that Jean-Pierre Jeunet made a name for himself with a much more mixed work: BigBug. But this time it is with a novel with worldwide success that the director has decided to return, Change the flower water. The 71-year-old decided to adapt this bestseller for the screen. If he made Audrey Tautou explode into stardom by offering her the role of Amélie Poulain, this time it was an actress already widely known to everyone that he chose in the leading role. In fact, it is who will have the main role of the film, that of Violette Toussaint.
As a reminder, here is the story of this book by Valérie Perrin: “Violette Toussaint is a cemetery guard in a small town in Burgundy. Passers-by and regulars come to warm up in her dressing room where laughter and tears mix with the coffee she offers them. His daily life is punctuated by their confidences. One day, because a man and a woman decided to rest together in his patch of land, everything changes. Links that unite the living and the dead are exhumed, and certain souls thought to be black turn out to be luminous. After the emotion and success of Oubliés du Dimanche, Valérie Perrin shares with us the intense story of a woman who, despite the trials, stubbornly believes in happiness. With this rare talent of making the ordinary exceptional, Valérie Perrin creates around this everyday fairy a world full of poetry and humanity. A hymn to the wonder of simple things.“
And the history of this cemetery guard has appealed beyond Burgundy, and France as well. Indeed, the novel by Claude Lelouch’s wife was a a true bestseller, a global phenomenon. It sold more than 850,000 copies in 2018 and was translated into 28 languages.
Leïla Bekhti ready for a big comeback?
Leïla Bekhti, always discreet about her private life, and father of her three children, is not one who plays roles one after another. The 40-year-old Franco-Algerian actress was seen in 2023 in the film I will always see your faces by Jeanne Herry, and in 2024 in The New Woman by Lea Todorov. The undeniably talented actress received the César for Most Promising Actress in 2011 for her performance in All That Shines. In this adaptation by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, she will find one of the director’s favorite actors, Dominique Pinon.
Valérie Perrin spoke about her collaboration with Jeunet in the columns of Paris Match. A fairly natural meeting with the director since she does not fail to remind us that his world inspired him. “Our universes are extremely close“, she said. She also indicated that A Long Engagement Sunday influenced her in her work, particularly for her first novel The Forgotten of Sunday. The novelist who needs no introduction is a co-sign the screenplay for this adaptation with Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Guillaume Laurant, his eternal and faithful collaborator.
