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# Blaise is brilliantly uncomfortable
- URL: https://regionfree.net/blaise-review-night-visions/
- Published: 2026-10-28T06:41:36.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T06:41:36.000Z
- Description: As hysterically uncomfortable as it is funny, Blaise is a brilliantly observed satire about all the ways we needlessly complicate our lives.
- Author: Joonatan Itkonen
- Tags: Festivals, Night Visions, #filmreview, #score-4

I squirmed so hard while watching Blaise, the impossibly acerbic and dry French comedy written and directed by Dimitri Planchon and Jean-Paul Guigue, that I left a mark on my seat.

This darkly observed satire reminds me of morbid humorists like Todd Solondz and Quentin Dupieux, with a hint of the heightened absurdity of Greener Grass thrown in for good measure. While nothing about Blaise rises above the mundane, the way Planchon and Guigue refuse to let any of their hapless protagonists get away with their discomfort raises the stakes to the stratosphere.

Blaise is a wholly unremarkable student at a local Parisian school. His guidance counsellor even politely tells his parents so. Deaf to harsh but necessary truths, they take it the wrong way and celebrate even the lowest hurdle their son clears. The father decides to unload his burdens on the trapped counsellor, while Blaise's mom remains adamant that her son is quiet because he's just too darn smart. 

Meanwhile, Blaise trudges into a relationship with a middle-aged woman, desperately seeking the thrill of living through political action. She doesn't know Blaise is a teenager, and she's too wrapped up in her own turmoil to care. Like others, she reads onto Blaise everything she wants to see in the world, and he's so terrified of not being loved that he goes with it. 

At work, Blaise's mom is a bully, though not entirely intentionally. She's awkward, blunt, and has little decorum or even the basic niceties. Her efforts to bond with a female coworker appear to be working, until it turns out both are sending mixed signals, and there's a sexual power play at hand. 

This merely scratches the surface of Planchon and Guigue's soul-destroying comedy. It's a film that is utterly merciless in its forthrightness, but also strangely not without compassion. 

At every turn, it feels as though Planchon and Guigue do care about these hopeless people. After all, they are us, and we are them. What makes the comedy so poignant is how instinctively we recognize these scenarios and picture ourselves in them. Naturally, not all end in such dramatically absurd conclusions, but who among us hasn't made a fool of themselves to gain acceptance?

The art style, a mix of realism and the clippings a lunatic might send in a ransom note, heightens the absurdity. Everyone keeps a straight face, especially when things get out of hand. There's a necessity to behave normally; otherwise, someone might realize we don't know what we're doing. Fake it till you make it is a poisonous mantra, yet it makes the world go around, and Planchon and Guigue make a meal of skewering every bit of that toxic positivity with glee.

Blaise is a tough watch, and it won't be for everyone. There's only so much squirming anyone can take, and even at a brisk 82 minutes, the barbs might prove too cutting for casual audiences. But those with a tolerance for cringe-inducing comedy and an appreciation for finely-tuned satire will find a lot to love here. It may be a funhouse mirror, but even those capture an element of truth.