by Chris Harris
Turning a much-loved television series into a film is always dangerous, particularly when its greatest strength was the characters we gradually came to know. Yet the new Call My Agent! film manages it remarkably well. Which left me wondering: as enjoyable as it was, would I actually have preferred another six-part series?
I absolutely loved the Call My Agent! Film, which we watched on Sunday. A 5 Star film to augment a 5 star series, one of the greatest, or at least personal favourite, comedy drama series of all time. Hence, I had been looking forward to it for a long time. There was always the danger that, after such a gap, it might feel like a reunion that should never have happened, as so often is the case turning a popular series into a film. Instead, it worked remarkably well. The pacing was excellent, the characters immediately felt familiar, and within minutes it was as though they had never really gone away. I disagree with the Guardian review where it says it ‘flags’ a little to the middle, this was an integral part of setting the long ending up to thrill.
For anyone who has not seen the original series, Call My Agent! follows the agents and staff of a Paris talent agency as they deal with actors, egos, professional disasters and their own complicated private lives. The numerous celebrity cameos are entertaining, but for me the real strength has always been the central characters. You become attached to them. They are funny, selfish, loyal, difficult, ridiculous and very human.
That is why the long gap before the film mattered. By the time it arrived, there was a genuine sense of revisiting old friends. That is really where my question starts. Would it actually have been better as another series?
The film is packed with incident. It moves quickly, there is very little wasted time, and almost all of the beloved characters you want to see turn up. It gives you the pleasure of seeing where everyone has ended up without spending too long explaining every detail. But did part of me still want more?
Take Andréa, played by Camille Cottin. We discover that her relationship has fallen apart and there are tensions surrounding their child. In a series, that could easily have been given much more room. You could imagine another their personal dynamic spread across several episodes dealing with the breakdown of the relationship, the arguments, the resentment, the practicalities and the emotional consequences.
Would that have made it better? Possibly. But possibly not. The film gives us enough to understand what has happened. We already know prickly Andréa. We know how driven she is, how difficult she can be and how relationships around her can suffer because of that. The film does not need to spend an hour spelling it all out.
The same applies to Noémie. She was once the secretary and assistant in the agency and is now clearly doing very well for herself, producing television and operating at a completely different level from where we first met her. Again, I would happily have watched this developed more explaining how that happened.
And that is the temptation with Call My Agent!. You want more because you like the characters so much. You do not necessarily need more.
Had this been another six episode series, we would probably have had more depth, more backstory and more time spent on each relationship. We would have seen far more of the emotional consequences of everything that had changed since the original series ended.
But television also has to fill television. A six episode series needs six episodes’ worth of complications. Stories have to be stretched. Problems have to last longer. Relationships need more obstacles. Things that can be dealt with in ten minutes in a film might take an entire episode to resolve. Ultimately, not every thread will hit the mark or resonate.
The film does not have that problem. It simply gets on with it, and I think that is one of the reasons it works so well.
There is something almost joyous about the speed of it. Characters appear, disappear, argue, reconcile and move on. You are never sitting there thinking that a storyline is being dragged out because the programme needs another forty minutes. Everything feels concentrated.
It feels like a triumpgant reunion rather than a restart, and I think that distinction matters. If they had made another full series, perhaps there would have been a danger of trying too hard to recreate what made the original special. The film does not really do that. It acknowledges that time has passed. People have changed. Careers have moved on. Relationships have altered. Then it throws everybody back together again.
I still cannot quite decide whether I would have preferred it as a series, because emotionally I would have loved more with them. I would quite happily have watched much more Andréa, much more Noémie and much more of everyone.
But wanting more is not the same as needing more, and I think that is probably the answer. If this really is the final chapter of Call My Agent!, then the film was probably the right way to do it. It gave us everything we needed without trying to rebuild the entire series from scratch. It was funny, fast, affectionate and packed with the characters we had missed. And unusually for a comedy series turned into a film, I actually think the film format improved it.
But, I say this as a fan of the series and somebody who knows and loves the characters. If you have not, and presumably this was in the thinking of the producers, the film needed to be a work that catered both for fans and as a standalone film for viewers who have not seen the series.
In that respect the film has achieved the remit of satisfying both old and new audiences.
