Because they’re chubby and often confined to the same character type at auditions, actresses Julie de Lafrenière, Sarah Desjeunes Rico, Debbie Lynch-White and Olivia Palacci offered themselves a lead role by envisioning the series “The Bombs,” in which they imagined camps four strangers who find themselves in a center specializing in addiction.
To achieve their goals, the four playmates – who became good friends during the trial – bonded with producer Sophie Deschênes (“19-2”, “Before the Crash”), writer Kim Lévesque Lizotte (“Les Simone”, ” Before the Crash”) together Crash”) and director Pascal L’Heureux (“Fisherman”, “Conversations with My Parents”).
The result is a dramatic comedy that is as funny, touching as it is profound, in which we all recognize ourselves here and there. Addiction may be a heavy subject, but we treat it here with enough humor to entertain and make us think through the emotion, resilience, and light that emerges from this search for happiness set against the backdrop of friendship. .
The four actors who portray the main characters are stout, a rarity on a television where all diversity finally shines, except for physical diversity. However, the girls are out of closed therapy for 21 days due to their obesity. We discover in the first episodes with flash images that the evil that afflicts her goes back to childhood.
Over the six episodes – journalists saw two on Monday – we dig deeper into their wounds to better understand them, as the characters themselves must, by taking a “journey deep within themselves”.
Photo agency QMI, Joël Lemay
Juliette (Olivia Palacci), a compulsive poker player, is in denial when she arrives at the catharsis center. But she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands when her partner Paul (Fred Eric Salvail) threatens to leave her.
Claudine (Debbie Lynch-White) is pinned against a wall by her adoptive parents (Chantal Baril and Maka Kotto) and her brother (Maxime-Olivier Potvin). They worry that their unbridled sexuality will make her dizzy.
Crown Attorney Vicky (Sarah Desjeunes Rico) overdoses on prescription drugs, but her body can’t take the storm any longer.
Finally, Emma (Julie de Lafrenière), a social worker, has a very interesting virtual life, but her many profiles hide her great loneliness. She was bullied by David (Maxime Mailloux) when she was young and her past will catch up with her.
There are few centers where all forms of addiction coexist, but Kim Lévesque Lizotte has found one in Switzerland! And for the needs of the variety of quests, we wanted to split the problems of the dwellers.
As soon as they arrive, the four girls are warmly welcomed by Louise (Lise Roy) and Pierre (Pier Paquette), two doctors in a couple who founded Catharsis after a personal tragedy. The author was inspired by a couple of doctors who strayed from traditional medicine to help their child overcome an addiction.
The four girls, who share the same room, take part in individual and group sessions, particularly art therapy, and share all meals with three other boarders: Jacynthe (Laetitia Isambert), who is orthorectic, Étienne (Félix-Antoine Duval), who suffers from OCD, and Grégoire (Jean-François Mercier), who is a compulsive shopper.
Kim Lévesque Lizotte worked for the first time with a structure that she had not established. She believed the exercise would be easier, but it was more challenging because she constantly relied on the four idea generators who had defined the characters’ names, their personalities, and the fall points. She is surprised by the words and the depth of the psychotherapist Fabien (Jean-Nicolas Verreault), whom she nevertheless fed with words.
We love Pascal L’Heureux’s creative camera – the camera turns upside down when a character’s life changes – the music by Philippe Brault and the Catharsis Center we’re setting up on the premises of the Orford Music Center in Estrie to have.
Produced by Sovimage in collaboration with Corus, the series “Les bombes” will be broadcast on Séries Plus from Thursday 2 February at 9pm.