Out this week in theaters, “Continue” is adapted from a successful novel of Laurent Mauvigner. But another book published at the same time tells the same story… Explanations. Led by Virginie Efira and Kacey Mottet Klein, the film Continue is adapted from the novel of the same name written by Laurent Mauvignier, which chronicles the journey of fictional of a mother and her son through Kyrgyzstan. Published for the first time in September 2016, the book has been a success in bookstores, and was awarded the prize Culture and Libraries for all. Fact rare enough to be stressed : “In the footsteps of the son”, another novel that tells this same story, was released a few months before “Continue”… But it has not served as a basis for the scenario of the film directed by Joachim Lafosse. The Covenant Kacey Mottet Klein and Virginie Efira
To write “Continue”, Laurent Mauvignier is based on an article in the World titled “Ride of initiation” of the journalist Pascale Krémer. Published in 2014, it describes the true story of a father who has decided to undertake a journey on horseback with his 17 year old son, Tom, through the steppes of central Asia, on the borders of Kyrgyzstan, and this for three months. This man called Renaud François and wanted to make this journey to be closer to her son, who was sliding on a slippery slope : school failure, violence, drugs… once the trip is completed, Renaud, and Tom Francis, assisted by the writer Denis Labayle, have written a book about this experience so particularly authentic : “In the footsteps of the son”, published in the editions Kero and published in may 2016. Continue by Joachim Lafosse : Virginie Efira in “a character of a mother who does not cede on her desire” When Denis Labayle, Renaud and Tom Francis have noticed that another novel telling the same story came out three months later, they fell out of the clouds. The shock was all the more important that their book did not sell well, unlike that of Laurent Mauvignier, who has benefited from the prestige of the writer and his publishing house (Editions de minuit). Renaud François decided to go to meet the author of “Continue”. He then explained that it is based solely on the article in the World to write his book (by making a few changes, including the replacement of the character of the father by the mother), without being aware of that other story on the subject existed… And even if “In the footsteps of the son” is released before “Continue”. Focus on Kacey Mottet Klein, the son of Virginie Efira in Continue Laurent Mauvignier had added : “For me… no problem with that question, I’m even happy to talk about it. This is not the first time that I write a book from a history that has existed. I inspires me a lot, like many writers, often of things that I read in the press. I am not a writer of imagination, I’m a writer who’s going to make things in the real world. […] What I try to do me, this is not a question of appropriating the history of the people […] from something that touches me, touches my own stories to me, with my own characters. It is obviously not to replace me in the story and each other. You have done your book, it is very good, but, me, I have done something else with it.” (Source : ActuaLitté) Finally, things have not progressed further, given that Laurent Mauvignier was not inspired directly from the book of Denis Labayle, Renaud, and Tom Francis. Several specialists in the field of literary have also recognized that if “Continue” is a novel powerful, it is not on the side of realistic “In the footsteps of the son,” born of a real-life experience by those who wrote it.