Bungalow: when the American dream turns into a nightmare

Who has never heard of renovations gone wrong? In the black comedy Bungalow, Guillaume Cyr and Sonia Cordeau play a young couple whose dream of buying their first home quickly turns into a nightmare .  

Sarah (Sonia Cordeau) and Jonathan (Guillaume Cyr) have just acquired a bungalow that does not look like much, and in very poor condition, at a very affordable price. Even if they don't have a lot of money in their pockets, the two lovebirds have every intention of transforming this hovel into the house of their dreams. 

Guillaume Cyr and Sonia Cordeau in the black comedy Bungalow .

But unfortunately, their lack of financial means will quickly force them to make questionable choices and make bad decisions. Sinking deeper and deeper into the vicious circle of debt and endless work, their daily lives will soon become hell. How far will they be willing to go to save their dream and their love?

The director and co-screenwriter of Bungalow, Lawrence Côté-Collins, knows a thing or two about renovations. In addition to having already directed renovation shows, she grew up with parents who specialized in real estate flips. 

“I spent my life in renovations, relates the filmmaker, in an interview at Newspaper. When I was young, my parents bought old houses, they destroyed them and renovated them to resell them for a little more. In my first photos as a child, you see me in a diaper with little construction boots! »

« In short, I grew up in it. It's part of my life, and it's my universe. I have often wondered why there were so many TV shows about renovations, but we never saw movies about it. However, renovations are often a nightmare and make relationships difficult. I thought it was a great subject for a comedy. 

Squeaky humor

Having already worked in the past with Lawrence Côté-Collins — for the short film Score, released in 2011 — Guillaume Cyr was already familiar with the director's biting humor. 

< p>“It's my favorite kind of humor,” admits the 41-year-old actor. The characters experience dramatic things, but the situations are so appalling and exaggerated that it becomes funny. Even sometimes, on the film set, we removed jokes from the text because we had the impression that it fell a little too much into the comic sketch. You had to constantly remind yourself that it was even funnier when you tried as little as possible to play comedy.” Collins believes that Bungalow is first and foremost about the illusion of the American dream.

“It's the conquest of the bungalow,” she says in laughing. The Disney cliché: they lived happily ever after and had many children. I'm brainwashed from Disney myself. I once got a room from Buzz Lightyear! 

“I am very cynical. But at the same time, it is cynicism that saves me. I think we are going collectively into a wall and it will be the end of the world in 20 years. That's also why I don't have children. Because I can't stand the world we live in… But I still prefer to laugh about it! »

►Bungalow< strong> hits theaters April 7.