An American sitcom of the 1980s? No, a 12 x 52 minute crime drama for France 2.
Face à face (formerly En quête de vérité) stars Claire Borotra (La vengeance aux yeux clairs, Le mystère du lac) as Judge Justine Rameau and Constance Gay (Unité 42) as Commander Vanessa Tancelin. Their co-stars are Pascal Demolon (Commissaire Alain Rameau), Marc Ruchmann (Plan Coeur, Le chalet) as Captain Grégory Kieffer and Clémentine Justine (Claire Sorel). The series was created by Anne-Charlotte Kassab (Léo Matteï, brigade des mineurs, Unité 42), Nassim Ben Allal (Les Chamois, Al Dorsey, détective privé) and Yann Le Gal (Léo Matteï, brigade des mineurs, Soupçons).
Written by Anne-Charlotte Kassab and Nassim Ben Allal with Yann Le gal, Episode 1 is actually the first of two one-hour pilots directed by Julien Zidi (Le crime lui va si bien, Perfect Murders) (1). The character played by Marc Ruchmann is credited "Grégory Marchois" in this couple of episodes. A man finds the dead body of another man on an office floor. He puts the cadaver on a chair and pushes him through a window. Vanessa Tancelin, a maverick police officer freshly transferred to Strasbourg, arrives on the crime scene. The victim, who fell from the 5th floor of a business incubator, was an architect.
Tancelin notices the first man, who stayed around, and arrests him after a chase without her shoes. Then, an article of the Code de procédure pénale pops up on our screen because someone probably thought it was a good idea. Commander Tancelin meets Justine Rameau, the juge d'instruction on the case. It looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship or a revival of TF1's long-running crime drama hit Femmes de loi (2) but there's a catch. Well, only for Justine who ignores that Vanessa is her half-sister. Édouard Koenig, their father who's a judge too, didn't tell her and now she's confronted with the truth as poor Édouard dies in front of them before a triple bypass surgery.
Both women are shocked, though Justine Rameau's husband learns about this new member of the family rather gracefully. After all, Alain Rameau is Vanessa Tancelin's boss. On the contrary, Justine can't cope with the presence of her half-sister. She doesn't tell her the day of Édouard's funeral and Vanessa retaliates by moving in Justine Rameau's family house. The rigorous judge starts a personal and professional war against the instinctive cop. This first hour of Face à face painfully dilutes a generic police procedural, "sold" by a far-fetched concept (3), into a family melodrama.
With the participation of Alain Doutey (Édouard Koenig) and Agnès Soral. Also with Éric Savin (Cédric Rouget), Charles Templon (Nicolas Gauvin), Slimane Yefsah (Alexandre Baranes), Emma Ninucci (Margaux Rameau), etc. Produced by Troisième Oeil Story and France Télévisions with RTL TVI and RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse). Exec produced by Thierry Langlois and Frédéric Bruneel. Produced by Sidonie Cohen de Lara and Sébastien Charbit. Ludovic Eyrolle is the production manager. Music by Flemming Nordkrog and Romain Trouillet. Cinematography by Dominique De Wever.
Filmed with the support of Région Grand Est and Strasbourg Eurométropole. Face à face premiered last month on RTL TVI. Distributed by Mediawan Rights (Mismatch is the international title).
(1) Unfortunately, Julien Zidi died in a motorcycle accident in May.
(2) Femmes de loi (2000-2009) was a crime drama centered on a substitut du procureur and a police lieutenant.
(3) "Un crime. Deux visions. L'une veut trouver les coupables, l'autre qu'ils soient condamnés. Instinctive, Vanessa, la flic, s’affranchit des règles pour arrêter les assassins. Procédurière, Justine, la juge, s’assure que le coupable soit condamné. Un seul point commun : leur père. Demi-sœurs, elles sont condamnées à vivre et travailler ensemble." (Press release).
[Update - March 14, 2022]
Made for France 2, Face à face arrives tomorrow on France 3.
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