{"id":890972,"date":"2026-09-10T21:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T21:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/890972\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T21:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T21:46:13","slug":"call-my-agent-the-movie-review-a-beloved-french-series-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/890972\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Call My Agent! The Movie’ review: A beloved French series returns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s been five years since \u201cCall My Agent!,\u201d<\/a> known in its home country as \u201cDix pour cent\u201d (\u201c10 percent\u201d), ended with the staff of Paris\u2019 bankrupt ASK talent agency moving en masse toward the exit, as in the closing moments of \u201cThe Mary Tyler Moore Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rich workplace comedy mounted four seasons from 2015 to 2020; the fourth was made without its creator, Fanny Herrero (she went on to create the fine but less successful \u201cStanding Up,\u201d about Parisian comics). But she has returned, along with \u201cStanding Up\u201d writer Lison Daniel, for \u201cCall My Agent! The Movie,\u201d premiering Thursday on Netflix, which picks up the scattered ensemble more or less where they imagined they\u2019d be when the series ended, and gets them back in the same frame.<\/p>\n

As a movie, it\u2019s its own sort of beast \u2014 a complete statement in a single package, with not just A and B stories, but C and D as well, and arcs that might develop over a season of the show compressed into a couple of hours. But its essentials are essentially unchanged: It\u2019s still about the difficulty of making art, and the often unsavory business that lets art get made, with known actors playing fun house versions of themselves and our heroes attempting to wrangle them into order, with whatever works \u2014 lies, bribes, real shared feelings. The regular cast, many of whom Americans will first have met here, still feel identical with their characters, rather than just professionals who have been paid to play them, so that even when the action is outlandish the emotions are real.<\/p>\n

The focus here is on the fierce Andr\u00e9a (Camille Cottin), who has left agenting and is about to direct her first movie, a drama set in the woods, and No\u00e9mie (Laure Calamy), whom Andrea hires as a replacement producer \u2014 she has become the producer of a hit workplace comedy, \u201cLes Colleagues,\u201d the sort of show that produces a lot of branded merch \u2014 believing that she can mold No\u00e9mie to her will. On the domestic front, Andr\u00e9a separated from partner Colette (Oph\u00e9lia Kolb), a co-parent to her daughter Flora \u2014 some sticky questions will arrive, doubling the pressure.<\/p>\n

No\u00e9mie is still with Mathias (Thibault de Montalembert), once the most formidable of agents, who has quieted down somewhat owing to a Season 4 heart attack, and the fact that he\u2019s working in the agency his daughter Camille (Fanny Sidney) announced at the end of the series. He\u2019s feeling old (comparatively, he is, at 64 \u2014 though Liliane Rov\u00e8re as agent emeritus Arlette beats him at 93) and things with No\u00e9mie are not great, which sets the stage for some romantic comedy, including a wild boar.<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9a\u2019s movie brings the old cast together, including sensitive junior agent turned aspiring actor Herv\u00e9 (Nicolas Maury), and I am glad to see them. (St\u00e9fi Celma\u2019s Sophia, a receptionist turned actor, is sadly missing.) Much goes wrong, before things go right. (It\u2019s a comedy, they will \u2014 though there are some moving dramatic moments along the way.) To be sure, there are no backstage comedies \u2014 or dramas, or dramedies \u2014 in which nothing goes wrong, or things even go mostly right. Disaster is the air they breathe.<\/p>\n

On the eve of production, Andrea loses her male lead (Laurent Lafitte as himself) to a Wes Anderson movie; the psychologically delicate actor they get to replace him, Vincent Macaigne as himself, who\u2019s represented by former ASK agent Gabriel (Gr\u00e9gory Montel), now working for their old rival, has a messy history with the other lead, Laetitia Casta, also as herself. They can barely work together. (There will be a bit of romantic comedy wrapped around this thread, as well.)<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s a storm.<\/p>\n

The French actors playing themselves are not well known here \u2014 Casta may be more familiar as a \u201990s supermodel, for those who are familiar with that sort of thing \u2014 but Americans have been given the gift of cameos from Eva Longoria<\/a> and an uncredited George Clooney<\/a> who takes a comically unproductive lunch meeting with Andrea, crashed, in more than one sense, by No\u00e9mie.<\/p>\n

Though the series finale made for a satisfying ending, there was already talk then of another season or a film. Still, \u201cThe Movie\u201d arrives seemingly out of left field, as sort of a happy surprise. It doesn\u2019t betray its legacy. We know from the supermarket magazines and internet scandal sites that some actors are seemingly as crazy as these actors pretend to be. But somehow movies get made. Most every show business satire is also a show business celebration. There\u2019s no business like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been five years since \u201cCall My Agent!,\u201d known in its home country as \u201cDix pour cent\u201d (\u201c10…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[308813,40992,158329,9930,49,48,27974,75,308812,14830,337,308811,308814,308815,61367,6903,721,1317,17838],"class_list":["post-890972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-actor-herve","tag-agent","tag-andrea","tag-art","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-drama","tag-entertainment","tag-fierce-andrea","tag-movie","tag-movies","tag-noemie","tag-own-sort","tag-replacement-producer","tag-romantic-comedy","tag-season","tag-series","tag-show","tag-thing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}