Publications
Partners
OUR RATING
4/5 Stars
WHAT IT'S ABOUT:
In Paris, France, a group of movie-star agents go about their lives and work, and they'll have to figure out how to carry on with the agency after the death of their fearless leader. This hour-long drama plays out much like a soap opera, with more realistic problems and concerns. They don't do Olympic-size gymnastics to get you to believe a plot or to create drama.
WHAT WE THOUGHT OF IT:
Writing about entertainment every day, it's my job to know the messy ins and outs of TV shows, movies, music and everything that happens on stage. But it turns out that the most fun occurs where cameras don't usually go. At least according to French drama/comedy, Call My Agent!
This series is like The Office meets Entourage. There are glamourous real-life movie stars like Juliette Binoche who make cameos, but the real-life of the show comes from taking a closer look at an office of agents.
The original title of the show in French, Dix pour cent, translates to ten percent, which is the usual amount that movie stars' agents take off the top of lucrative contracts. It's big business.
Along with this big business are all the problems that money brings, office romances, love children and even attempts at hostile takeovers. The best part of this show is definitely how it made me laugh when I needed it most. It made me feel like I was taking a glamorous holiday in Paris with beautiful people who love to party. I enjoyed it so much that I watched two seasons in the space of about 3 days. Lockdown or not, that's some seriously captivating TV.
No show is perfect though, and one of the things I didn't enjoy about it though were some stereotypes it played into. Worn out tropes like the two people of the opposite gender must secretly want to hook up, and bosses using their position of power to have affairs. Although, further in, I must admit that they did try and have a storyline at Cannes which was the antithesis of all this, but it didn't do enough in my opinion and only served to highlight why Call My Agent! might need someone like Adele Haenel to make a cameo, as soon as possible.
My favourite performance from the main cast is Camille Cottin as Andréa Martel. She plays a wise-cracking, powerful agent whose no-nonsense approach leads her straight to the top of her glitzy field. She finds a way to give her stars what they want but somehow doesn't manage to do the same for herself and is flawed in the best possible. She's so interesting to watch on screen as she deals with corporate life and making a mess of her personal life. At least that is, at the end of season 2, where I currently am in binging. There are four seasons in total and three of them are currently on the streaming platform.
Overall, I would say that the three seasons available of this show to binge on Netflix, are the perfect thing to indulge in to take your mind off the world for a few hours. It's nothing that will give you nightmares at night or make you overthink. It's frivolous and pure escapism.
Of course, there are quite a few people out there who don't enjoy reading subtitles, but please don't let this stop you from enjoying this. As Parasite's director Bong Joon-ho said at the Oscars, it's only a one-inch barrier between you and some really incredible work.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
