Call My Agent, the Movie — The Art of Starting Again
Call My Agent, the Movie — The Art of Starting Again
There is something inherently cinematic about failure. A production collapses, an actor disappears, a career must be reinvented, and behind the polished façade of the entertainment industry lies the perpetual possibility of chaos. Call My Agent, the Movie understands this contradiction and turns it into the foundation of its story: the cinema as both dream and profession, glamour and precariousness.
The film follows the enormously successful French television series Call My Agent! (Dix pour cent), which first appeared on France 2 in 2015 before finding an international audience through Netflix. (« Dix pour cent », « Better Call Saul »... les séries à ne pas manquer, 2017) Over four seasons, the series transformed the Parisian talent agency into a miniature theatre of human ambition. ('Call My Agent! The Movie' on Netflix offers a long-awaited, joyful cast reunion, 2026) Its agents navigated actors' egos, producers' demands, and the complications of their own private lives, while a parade of real celebrities appeared as fictionalised versions of themselves. (Collins, 2022)
At the centre of that universe was Andréa Martel, played with formidable intelligence and emotional volatility by Camille Cottin.
Five years after the disappearance of A.S.K., Andréa has exchanged the agent’s desk for the director’s chair. (Monde, 2026) She is about to make her first feature film — an obvious professional progression, but also a symbolic one. The woman who once negotiated actors' careers must now assume responsibility for an entire artistic vision.
Naturally, everything goes wrong.
Her leading actor withdraws shortly before shooting begins, forcing Andréa to resurrect old relationships and reunite members of her former professional circle. Noémie Leclerc, now working as a television producer, becomes part of the rescue operation, while former colleagues and old rivalries return with them. (Monde, 2026) The film set consequently becomes an extension of the world we knew from the series: a place where artistic ambition, commercial necessity and human insecurity constantly collide.
But the screenplay gradually shifts the centre of gravity away from the production itself.
Andréa’s professional crisis is accompanied by a much more intimate struggle involving the custody of her daughter. The film also revisits the domestic violence present in Andréa’s past. Importantly, the film does not exploit this material for melodramatic effect. The violence remains part of the character’s history rather than becoming the film's spectacle. What interests the narrative more profoundly is what comes afterwards: the difficult, imperfect process of rebuilding a life.
This gives Call My Agent, the Movie an unexpectedly mature emotional dimension.
The film is at its most interesting when it considers the relationship between professional identity and personal identity. Andréa is accustomed to solving problems for other people. Now she is confronted with problems that cannot simply be negotiated away. Her transformation from agent to director is therefore not merely a change of profession; it becomes a test of whether she can finally take control of her own narrative.
The irony is that she discovers directing to be remarkably similar to being an agent. Both professions involve managing personalities, negotiating egos, anticipating disasters and maintaining the illusion that everything remains under control.
The celebrity cameos — including George Clooney, Eva Longoria, Laetitia Casta, Laurent Lafitte and Vincent Macaigne — continue one of the franchise’s most distinctive traditions. (Call My Agent! The Movie on Netflix offers a long-awaited, joyful cast reunion, 2026) Their appearances are not simply decorative. They contribute to the film’s playful interrogation of celebrity culture, blurring the boundaries between the performer, the persona and the character.
This is where the film retains the intelligence of its television predecessor. Call My Agent! has always been fascinated by the machinery behind celebrity: what happens when the public image of an actor collides with the private individual, and what happens when an industry built upon illusion becomes increasingly difficult to control.
The film extends that fascination to cinema itself.
We see the production not as a seamless creative process but as an unstable ecosystem of compromises, personalities, money, deadlines and accidents. The glamour exists, but so does the exhaustion behind it. The camera may ultimately produce an image of effortless perfection, but getting there is anything but effortless.
There are moments when the comedy becomes broader than necessary. Some of the gags push beyond the subtle observational humour that made the original series so distinctive. Yet even these excesses belong to the film’s larger rhythm. Its comedy functions as a form of resistance: whenever the story threatens to become overly sombre, humour breaks through.
And that tonal balance is crucial.
Call My Agent, the Movie does not deny suffering, but neither does it allow suffering to define its characters. Its fundamental idea is one of reconstruction. Careers end. Relationships change. Families fracture. Dreams fail. Yet people continue to improvise.
Perhaps that is why the film ultimately feels less like a conventional reunion project than a meditation on second acts.
Andréa is not attempting to return to the person she once was. She is attempting to discover who she might become after everything has changed.
For a franchise built around actors, agents and the performance of identity, it is an appropriately cinematic question.
Verdict — 4/5
At Les Epicuriens Culture, we found Call My Agent, the Movie an intelligent, entertaining and emotionally generous continuation of the franchise. Its comedy occasionally sacrifices subtlety for exuberance, but its understanding of the entertainment industry, its charismatic ensemble and its exploration of resilience give the film a surprising depth.
Ultimately, this is a film about cinema that understands one of cinema’s oldest truths: sometimes the most compelling story is not the one in which everything goes according to plan, but the one in which the protagonist learns how to continue after the plan has collapsed.
References
(April 18, 2017). « Dix pour cent », « Better Call Saul »... les séries à ne pas manquer. Le Monde. https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2017/04/18/dix-pour-cent-better-call-saul-les-series-a-ne-pas-manquer_5112747_3246.html
(September 11, 2026). 'Call My Agent! The Movie' on Netflix offers a long-awaited, joyful cast reunion. Le Monde. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2026/09/11/call-my-agent-the-movie-on-netflix-offers-a-long-awaited-joyful-cast-reunion_6757431_30.html
Collins, L. (June 20, 2022). Life After “Call My Agent!”. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/27/life-after-call-my-agent
Monde, L. (September 11, 2026). 'Call My Agent! The Movie' on Netflix offers a long-awaited, joyful cast reunion. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2026/09/11/call-my-agent-the-movie-on-netflix-offers-a-long-awaited-joyful-cast-reunion_6757431_30.html
Monde, L. (September 11, 2026). Call My Agent! The Movie on Netflix offers a long-awaited, joyful cast reunion. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2026/09/11/call-my-agent-the-movie-on-netflix-offers-a-long-awaited-joyful-cast-reunion_6757431_30.html
(September 11, 2026). Call My Agent! The Movie on Netflix offers a long-awaited, joyful cast reunion. Le Monde. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/culture/article/2026/09/11/call-my-agent-the-movie-on-netflix-offers-a-long-awaited-joyful-cast-reunion_6757431_30.html
