Le bureau

I haven't been laughing this loud while watching french television since...well since Nicolas & Bruno's "messages à caractère informatif". I admit their sense of humor does definitely not work for everybody, but you can't ignore, in this show, the actors' sincerity & sheer talent, i've never seen François Berleand in such a good shape, and the man who plays Leguelec (he kinda acts like an evil patrick dewaere...)seems so real you'd give anything to kick him in the teeth, just once...and that's the thing i particularly love about "Le bureau", it's the fact that it can get real real bitter sometimes as the characters it depicts don't seem exactly exaggerated in comparison to real life : light racism, abusive authority, plain stupidity, misogyny...the worst of the 21st century man is here. As for the purpose itself it is highly corrosive and is a direct resonance to the time of economical, psychological, sociological crisis that France is going through these days (errr, years...i mean decades...) The documentary-like direction is quite effective and very helpful to the whole purpose. There is no cheap laugh around here : just sit and watch this.

After having watched and absolutely loved Ricky Gervais's Masterpiece, this french version of the UK hit series The Office is absolutely pathetic.

Tha guy playing the boss has absolutely not talent. What was great about the original version is that everything seemed natural and real.

In this french version the actors are so bad that everything seems fabricated and fake. The script is the same with the English one just translated and a little bit modified but most of it is there, which makes it even worse to watch. What an easy attempt of a franchise...

Oh well, the french never really had a good sense of humour.

Don't waste your money on this. Watch the original masterpiece instead and if you're french and you can't, well learn to speak English for a change. Studying one foreign language at least never hurt anyone.

This show is the worst piece of c... I've ever seen. First off, it doesn't look like anything, but in the bad way, in the way that everything is vile, flat, with nothing behind it, from the lousy production design up to the actors. Then, it has absolutely no screenplay, no directing, no editing, the actors are not guided, nothing. It's filmed puke, the "directing" absolutely doesn't exist, the images consist of nothing but zooms in every directions who make you as sick as the rest of it does. Francois Berleand (who, to begin with, is quite far from representing refinement and subtlety) outrageously overacts a part that doesn't even seen to have any guidelines anywhere, stresses upon each and every debility he utters (dialogs can barely be heard, rarely understood, the boom operators seem to do as much of a bad job as everyone else), and eyes the camera after each line of retarded dialogs as if he was saying to a mental audience "laugh now, I just said something!". The dialogs seem completely ad libbed and just give us the feeling to see Berléand "au naturel", at home, behaving like the rightist square that he probably is (with the difference that he's getting paid to do this show, I assume?). If the goal of the people responsible for this piece of dung is to make the vilest portrait ever of some retarded men of our times, they really should rather shoot a documentary about some politicians - this would have a social purpose at least. If their goal is to bore the living hell out of the audience, then sadly it might not boost the TV channel as expected (?), even although the goal is indeed achieved successfully. If the goal is to show that some people exist who have a sad and boring life, they're not breaking any news. Besides, if that's what their goal is, it is totally filthy from them to spit and look down on SMEs. Because one could as easily and as effortlessly do a bad TV show that would make fun of wealthy kids from the rich districts of Paris who film rotten shows for Canal + thinking viewers will care about it. Poor France.

The series on its own could have been really funny. And I have to say it is. The problem is that it's a mere cut & paste of the genuine Office, the British one. The only differences are the names -obviously- and some tiny details that wouldn't have made any sense in the French language. I don't see the point of this French version. Nicolas & Bruno truly made me laugh with their "Message à Caractère Informatif" but here, it makes me feel sorry for them. Wha's the point of simply copying..? François Berléand is yet a very talented actor and he's doing his best to play the French David Brent. To conclude, if you can understand English go for the original, you won't be disappointed. If you don't, then learn :) The (British) Office is definitely worth it, not the French one.

Based on the British show The Office, Le Bureau relocates Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's slough-based sitcom to a Parisian suburb. Though it is essentially an exact reworking of the original with only the language and cultural references changing, it fares well as its own series. Maintaining the cringe-worthy yet hilarious tone of the original it features competent performances throughout, which stand in their own right, though never reaching the remarkably high level set by the original. On the surface the show seems to be about the mundane goings on in an everyday office, but looking beyond that reveals a satire on the nature of celebrity and of humour itself.

Definitely worth searching out.