Dany Boon has done it again. This Friday premieres ‘A stingy’s manual’, another comedy that has burst the French box office killing three million French people with laughter. It was bad! A great moment to remember the career of this fifty-year-old comedian (he was born on June 26, 1966) with ten other films that caused millions of laughs.
‘The house of your dreams’ (Dany Boon, 2006)
Starting out as a street mime , Dany Boon was already a hyper-popular comedian in France when he launched into directing, and writing, and starring in, and producing his first film, which naturally had to be a comedy. Although he had been nominated for a César for a very dramatic role in ‘Merry Christmas’ (Christian Carion, 2005), his thing is laughter, as evidenced by this kind of ‘This house is a ruin’ (with Michèle Laroque in his arms) that It was his business card in our theaters, convincing a few viewers.
‘My best friend’ (Patrice Leconte, 2006)
The following was this comedy with which Patrice Leconte tries to return to his origins in popular comedy. Daniel Auteuil is the sophisticated and cynical art dealer who has no friends. His partner, incarnated by the still unofficial First Lady of France (Julie Gayet), bets him that she won’t be able to introduce him to his ‘best friend’. Auteuil’s character is about to lose the bet when he meets an affable taxi driver… Dany Boon, of course.
‘Welcome to the North’ (Dany Boon, 2008)
And the phenomenon exploded, Boon went Boom. Born into a humble family in the North of France – an Algerian father and a French mother – the comedian exploited all the tics and characteristics of his native region, including the local jargon, to forge the culture shock that made him the highest paid actor in all of Europe.
‘Micmacs’ (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2009)
Here Dany Boon trusted the magic of the director of ‘Amélie’. The idea is that of an innocent traumatized by the big arms business, who decides to take revenge with the help of his quirky friends. In France, 1,258,804 viewers saw it, here much less: 37,401. Also from 2009 are ‘De l’autre côté du lit’, an unprecedented comedy in our cinemas by Pascale Pouzadoux in which he starred alongside Sophie Marceau, and ‘Dinner with friends’, by Danièle Thompson, which was released, although with a couple of years late.
‘Nothing to declare’ (Dany Boon, 2010)
Dany Boon went back behind the camera to try to repeat the unrepeatable, this time with the help of Benoît Poelvoorde. The North of France, and in particular the Franco-Belgian border, are once again the subject that Boon will exploit with singular success. It will be his second highest grossing film in France, after of course the record reached with ‘Welcome to the North’.
‘Take me to the Moon’ (Pascal Chaumeil, 2012)
A rom-com opposite Diane Kruger, it’s not the role you’d imagine Dany Boon being in. But something like that happened, and with a most predictable plot. At first, she is forced to force a marriage of convenience only with this globetrotter who will take her all over the planet. But touching makes love.
‘Eyjafjallajokull (or Simply the volcano)’ (Alexandre Coffre, 2013)
Do you remember that volcano whose ashes blocked flights from half of Europe? What was it called? Well that. From there, this brainless new comedy is built, in which Dany Boon forms a pair (that is to say, because their characters are divorced and hate each other) with Valérie Bonneton, who in France was a new bombshell, with 1,7837,433 viewers, although here it was released directly on VOD.
‘Superchondriaque’ (Dany Boon, 2014)
Also unreleased in our theaters, Dany Boon ‘s third highest-grossing film brought more than five million French people to the cinema. The film marks Boon’s reunion with Kad Merad, the other postman from ‘Welcome to the North’, six years after breaking records. Boon, who earned two million euros just for the role, is inspired here by his own hypochondria to embody an imaginary patient who is prescribed love to get rid of the paranoia in his head.
‘Lolo’ (Julie Delpy, 2015)
It did not reach half a million viewers, which in France, taking into account the Dany Boon factor, was experienced as a true failure. It doesn’t matter that on this side of the Pyrenees it stayed at 33,122 spectators. The film was perhaps in no man’s land. Julie Delpy is too sophisticated for Boon’s audience, and the comedian is too ‘popular’ for fans of the Godard-discovered singer, actress and director.
‘Manual of a stingy’ (Fred Cavayé, 2016)
Dany Boon ‘s character is somewhat reminiscent of that of his directorial debut, ‘The house of your dreams’, which also had a tendency to save. Although here stinginess reaches the most unlikely extremes. And life will punish him for it, with a daughter he didn’t know he had and a love on the same chord, that is, she plays the cello, just like him, or almost, who plays the violin. It took the comedian and Laurence Arné three months to learn to play their respective instruments. Or at least to know how to pretend that they played them well.
‘Raid Dingue’ (Dany Boon, 2017)
Released in France on February 1, this new comedy is a rocket at the tricolor box office. Dany Boon plays an officer from the elite unit of the French police -the famous Raid, which here is not an insecticide-, who sees the arrival in the body, eminently masculine, of a young rookie played by Alice Pol ( Boon’s comedic protégé who has already appeared in ‘Take Me to the Moon’ and ‘Superchondriaque’).
