"The Flame" by Jonathan Cohen: a look back at the first three episodes

Jonathan Cohen is back with La Flamme, a parody of reality shows dating, broadcast on Canal +, from Monday, October 12, at the rate of three episodes per week. Jonathan Cohen took over the American format Burning Love, a parody produced by Ben Stiller. For the occasion, the French actor surrounds himself with a hallucinating cast, including Ana Girardot, Géraldine Nakache, Doria Tillier, Vincent Dedienne, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Leïla Bekhti and Florence Foresti. The episodes are decorated with guests of all kinds, with appearances by Pierre Niney, Ramzy Bedia, Gilles Lellouche or the rapper Orelsan.

A good concept not always fully developed

Jonathan Cohen holds here a most interesting concept. By making fun of reality TV, he can play with the codes of the genre, with the clichés of this style, to offer great comic springs. It sets up deliberately stereotyped characters, which make it possible to approach the themes of reality TV with humor. Permanent parody, mockery on low-end television, big farce for fans of the genre, Jonathan Cohen has fun like crazy, and surrounds himself with all the jewel of French cinema. Certainly, the actor holds a concept. A concept easily derivable, and that it can stretch over many episodes. But it relies too much on this concept aspect precisely, without reaching the full potential of the series. The comic springs are sometimes borderline, and cruelly lack originality. The characters are too much archetypes to really step out of their status as classic figures. And Jonathan Cohen just doesn't go far enough. He does not push his humor, the trashy side and the stupidity of his hero far enough. So much so that The Flame could almost be a classic reality show. Especially if we do not know beforehand that it is a parody. A formatted product, which could easily spend the afternoon on W9. It's not as "stupid" as classic reality shows, but not far away. Only the impressive cast reminds viewers that this is indeed fiction.

A repetitive pattern

Then, The Flame lacks variation. Jonathan Cohen follows the concept of reality TV to the letter, to the point of imposing the same pattern, repetitively and without real flavor. He prefers to stick as much as possible to the base material rather than indulge in deviations, to take liberties, which never seem to happen. The episodes are too similar to really create the continuity and tonal changes needed to keep the audience interested. It seems to deprive itself of a higher potential than mere parody.  Finally, the staging is closer to a YouTube format than a serial format. Even if that's the goal, this parody can quickly turn empty. Fortunately, good ideas remain, and endearing characters. Special mention to Adèle Exarchopoulos against employment, to Florence Foresti faithful to herself, and to Youssef Hajdi, huge comic potential, put aside much too quickly. In short, The Flame has a huge comic charge, but certainly not in length. To see later… In short, all this to say that La Flamme is not exceptional for the moment.The series never reaches its full potential and relies too much on its concept. Repetitive pattern, humor not always high-end. Jonathan Cohen is lazy in writing which remains a bit cliché. Remains a crazy cast.