Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fiasco’ On Netflix, A Mockumentary Series About A Disastrous Film Shoot

The mockumentary comedy format has been around for decades, going back to Monty Python and SNL short films by Albert Brooks, through The Rutles, This Is Spinal Tap and every Christopher Guest film. But it really exploded on TV when Ricky Gervais’ The Office debuted in 2001. Yes, that was 23 long years ago, and it seems like some show or another with that format has been on our TVs ever since, most of them employing the same kind of cringe comedy that was less common when Gervais did it. A new French mockumentary series takes that cringe dynamic and plops it down on the set of a film that was basically doomed as soon as it made its rookie writer into a rookie director.

FIASCO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Go ahead, Raphaël, tell me everything,” a filmmaker says. We see a bearded Raphaël Valande (Pierre Niney), director of A Defiant Woman, squirming as he starts to talk.

The Gist: As Raphaël and others talk to a filmmaker doing a “Making of” documentary about A Defiant Woman, we see snippets of how much of a disaster the film shoot actually was. Then we see Raphaël is speaking from a prison interview room. “I had a dream, and someone decided I wouldn’t achieve it. Want to know who it is?”

As producer Jean-Marc Torrosian (Pascal Demolon) takes the filmmaker through the set on the first day of shooting one year earlier, we see first-time director Raphaël, who also wrote the film, nervously talking to Ingrid Flaumenbaum (Géraldine Nakache), who plays his grandmother. She’s the lead in Raph’s film that centers on his grandmother’s work for the French resistance during World War II, but the script spans different eras. And, it’s obvious from Raph’s awkward conversation that a) he has a crush on Ingrid and b) he’s never been on a movie set before.

As he begins shooting the first scene, Raph shows that he’s in way over his head. He gets intimidated by his male star, Robin Jacoment (Vincent Cassel), to shoot without smoke effects. And he doesn’t even get to say “Action,” with the assistant director and others yelling it when he won’t.

Raph’s grandmother (Marie-Christine Barrault), who never sanctioned this film, comes by the set with his brother and sister. She seems unfazed by the whole thing; but she did promise that the daughter of the people who bought their livestock can do all the stunts, something Ingrid was trained and looking forward to doing.

During lunch, Jean-Marc pulls Raph aside and tells him that he needs to assert himself and say “I’m the boss.” He then encourages Raph to speak to the cast and crew during lunch. The speech goes horribly wrong, as he uses really explicit language to tell everyone what he won’t tolerate being said on his set, pointing out Ingrid’s low-cut top and mentioning his sausage, among other things.

Later, we see Raph talking to Ingrid about that speech, claiming that he was trying to get a rise out of her, to play his tough-as-nails grandmother. He then mentions Method acting and launches into a long and boring story about running into Christian Bale in a restaurant bathroom; Ingrid insults him as a way to get into character, then turns her vitriol onto the stunt coordinator, who just happens to enter the room while this is going on.

Jean-Marc finds out that someone on the crew took a video of Raph’s inappropriate speech and is threatening to post it social media (Jean-Marc is such a dinosaur, he thought “post” referred to the mail) if they don’t pay 50,000 euros. He tries to keep the news away from Raph but he was cc’ed on the email. So now, in addition to not having control of his own set, Raph has a mole to deal with.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The awkwardness of Fiasco is reminiscent of Ricky Gervais’ original version of The Office or Extras.

Our Take: We specifically mentioned the original Office as opposed to the US version or any of the mockumentary sitcoms that have come around since to point out that this comedy format has consistently been on TV for almost a quarter-century now, and the rhythms of it haven’t really changed. We have lots of cringe lines, lots of things going wrong because the person put in charge has no capacity to lead, plenty of misunderstandings, and things that spiral out of control.

It’s a pretty well-worn format, and because Niney and his co-creator, Igor Gotesman, rely heavily on cringe and discomfort, we don’t feel like we’re seeing anything new or refreshing here. Most of the comedy in the first episode comes out of the fact that Rafe has no idea what he’s doing and doesn’t have the ability to be at all assertive. How many times are we going to watch him put his foot in his mouth before we wonder why Jean-Marc and the other producers don’t fire him and put a real director in charge? How in the world did anyone funding the movie agree to let this wet rag direct the film?

Sometimes the cringe is funny, like when Rafe claims he’s into dubstep and says that “they just released some hits.” But for the most part, we see Rafe as a guy who has been dropped into a situation he shouldn’t be in, and we’re just waiting to see what happens that sends this generally unassuming man to prison.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: A complicated stunt is about to go very wrong because, in the process of apologizing to the stunt coordinator for Ingrid’s Method insults, he pockets a controller that he activates way too early.

Sleeper Star: François Civil plays Rafe’s childhood friend Tom, who is determined to get a role, even though he’s a terrible actor. We’re sure he causes a ton of chaos during the shoot.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I wanna put my big sausage between mama’s titties.” Yes, Rafe says that during his lunch speech.

Our Call: SKIP IT. While Fiasco has a couple of funny moments, the cringe mockumentary format is uses is tired and mostly left us stone-faced.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.