SUPERCHONDRIAC / Supercondriaque
North American Premiere • Comedy • France, 2014
DCP • 2.35 • Dolby 5.1 • Color • 107 min
Written and directed by: Dany Boon
Cinematography: Romain Winding
Film Editing: Monica Coleman
Original Score: Klaus Badelt
Produced by: Jérôme Seydoux (Pathé Films), Eric Hubert
Cast: Dany Boon (Romain Faubert), Alice Pol (Anna Zvenka), Kad Merad (Dr. Dimitri Zvenka), Jean-Yves Berteloot (Anton Miroslav), Judith El Zein (Norah Zvenka), Marthe Villalonga (Dimitri’s mother), Valérie Bonneton (Isabelle)
International Sales: Pathé Distribution • patheinternational.com
Dany Boon will have you aching with laughter as Romain Faubert, a germ-obsessed hyper-hypochondriac whose medical bills could probably fund a small country. On top of that, he has what might be the worst possible job for someone with his condition: photographing case studies for an online medical encyclopedia. If Romain ever had many friends they long ago lost patience with his obsessive self-medicating and fussing over diseases no one has ever heard of. Only Dr. Zvenska has stayed by his side, mostly out of sheer exhaustion. Zvenska, desperate to rid himself of this most pesky patient, diagnoses Romain with a chronic case of acute loneliness, and promises to help him find a soulmate through online dating. Of course, Romain sets his sights on someone a little closer to home, and completely out of his league.
Superchondriac, with its more earnest romantic moments and big action set-pieces, is an evolution in the filmmaking ambitions of actor/writer/director Dany Boon. He began his career as a comic personality on French television. As a performer, Boon combines the sulky silliness of Adam Sandler with the spastic grumpiness of Louis De Funès. In 2003, he did a wildly popular live show completely in the dialect of his native region, known as ch’ti. This led to his 2006 box-office behemoth, Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks) (North American Premiere - COLCOA 2008). It was his second turn in the director’s chair and its success established Boon as a permanent fixture in the firmament of French comic cinema. In his hilarious follow-up Nothing To Declare (North American Premiere - COLCOA 2011), two over-zealous border patrol officers waged a personal turf war at the Franco-Belgian border. Superchondriac, Boon’s fifth film as a writer and his fourth as a director, has scored another hit at the French Box Office, where it opened in February.
“Performances are turned up several notches, with regular counterpart Merad (The Chorus) playing the only sane person on screen.”
- Jordan Mintzer HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
