Represent (En Place) is a French political comedy series released on Netflix on 20th January 2023. Produced by Studio 14, it is directed and created by Jean-Pascal Zadi with François Uzan, the series is a social comedy that follows Stéphane Blé, an idealistic educator who is inadvertently thrust into the French presidential race.
The cast of the series includes Jean-Pascal Zadi as Stéphane Blé, Éric Judor, Benoît Poelvoorde, Fadily Camara, Marina Foïs, Fary, Pierre-Emmanuel Barré and Panayotis Pascot. There are 6 episodes in total with a runtime of about 30 minutes each.
Netflix’s description of the series reads:
A youth centre leader from the suburbs of Paris becomes a candidate in the presidential election. But is France truly ready for a Black president?
-Represent Review Does Not Contain Any Spoilers-
The series starts off with a scene that you will see right in the middle of the show. It shows that a black man named Stéphane Blé is running for the second round of presidential elections and it’s a competition between him and the other candidate who is a lady. Questioning if the next French president will be a black man or a woman, a first for both.
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Coming to the present day, we see that Stéphane is a youth community educator, who is tired of the running candidate’s empty promises since he knows the ground reality where the welfare budgets are being cut down. One of the presidential candidates is the mayor of the town where he lives and when he comes for a visit to the neighbourhood, Stéphane counterquestions his motivation by spilling the reality.
His video becomes viral and people start rooting for him to run for the country as well. Except that Stéphane Blé is not at all the ideal candidate. Far from there. The educator makes problematic remarks, he could lead the country’s economy down with his wacky ideas and on top of that, he doesn’t have any team or strategy to achieve anything.
That’s when William Crozon comes into the picture, who claims himself to be the kingmaker, who will make Blé the next president. Together they do set up a team and get things rolling. But what benefit does William have from all this? Is Blé even the best person to run for the role and will he realise that not everyone on his team is actually on his side? This is what you will find out in the show.
Right from the start you get the picture of how the series is going to be like, taking the real-life situation and instances but turning it into something more exaggerated that it feels absolutely absurd. On second thought, it doesn’t seem totally absurd, as we see the almost same things happening around us. But you get the idea, from candidates with extreme campaigns to in-your-face awkward situations, you get it all here.
Although the plot starts off a bit interesting, we get intrigued by what will happen next, however, that’s when the graph goes down or just stays in one place. After one point, there’s not much happening and you start questioning what even is the motivation here. It’s more like a skit where the punches and jokes are more important than taking the story forward or developing it.
Final Thoughts: Represent
Overall, the series felt more like a parody to me, where they tried to show every bizarre, stereotypical thing by giving it a woke spin and adding a bit of humour, to keep things light. While they wanted to portray that even a person like Stéphane Blé can open his horizons and dream big, people should dare to do the things they are maybe afraid of; or believe won’t happen. Their intentions were good, unfortunately, it doesn’t come out as warm-heartedly on the screen.
The problem lies in the story which loses its track in the middle and doesn’t have much to offer and keep the viewer engaged. They even reveal a big clue right in the first scene, which they think they are building up to, but in reality, we already know what’s gonna happen so it feels like a drag. On a side note, the thing I appreciate the most is the ending, as we have seen before – how the series ends on a cliffhanger, where don’t even reveal who won the elections in the end and keeps it either open ending or leaving for another season.
I was sceptical if it will be the same, fortunately, we got a resolution and the answers. And just for this reason, I think it’s an okayish quick watch which you can see when you don’t feel like using your brain cells and just blankly stare at something. There are a few funny moments but don’t expect much from this comedy.
Represent is currently streaming on Netflix.
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