At first sight, Oliva Dionne isn’t a friendly character. Luckily, one of Roy’s main qualities is this power to transform a potentially despicable character into a human with weaknesses but also full of qualities. Two examples perfectly prove it : Ovila Pronovost in Les Filles de Caleb and Yves in Being at home with Claude.

Ovila had emotional deficiencies which cruelly hurt his close relatives. He was alcoholic, irresponsible in many ways and had a fragility towards life which made him someone it was impossible to count on. Roy gave him an inner light which grew the character. Ovila became, thanks to him, a man whose failings we accepted because his presence became necessary to us. Ovila bore so much love and tenderness in his eyes, so much gentleness in his being that it was impossible to despise him and much more unimaginable to hate him.

Yves. Gay and prostitute. Completely obsessed by sex and passion. Not easy to transform him into a pure being without falling into delirium. Roy took Yves with him to his own limits and we followed him in spite of everything, without fainting, overwhelmed by the dimension he gave to this young man, tortured by a love he wanted to be eternal.

Oliva Dionne is of the same type as these two previous ones except that this character has his origins in a real person. Oliva Dionne belongs to a shady episode of our recent past, this episode was a bright but also squalid demonstration of information falsification by authorities, of greed and selfishness of human being. By slipping into Oliva Dionne’s skin, Roy needed to adjust his performance to the fictional view of the series character instead of to the man who really was the father of the Dionne quintuplets. With nuances we we're familiar with, he gave to this imaginary man the right amount of kindness, tenderness and integrity so that final scenes don't flay the character by making him fall on the bad side. If pushed, we would nearly forgive him for taking his revenge for the insulting behavior of the authorities who preceded him as managers of his daughter’s possessions.

The story of the Dionne quintuplets is known by everyone in the province of Quebec. There are two reasons. For the time reference (it happened during theThirties crisis) and for the exceptional event that was this multiple birth. That five identical girls come into the world is a unique phenomenon itself. Their survival is like a miracle, considering the historic period and the lack of means available to the adults close to the girls.

We have to delve into the historical context to understand.

Since October 1929, the western world had fallen into an unprecedented economic storm. Unemployment and poverty combined together and become the fate for a vast majority of people. Canada is no exception. Corbeil outside Quebec’s borders, in the neighboring province of Ontario, is about to become a legend. French Canadians living in this province, a minority by their number, by their language and by their religion, try like other citizens to escape the misery of those dark days. It was in this context that Elzire Legros, a young woman of the village, was bearing her sixth child. She had married a man 6 years older than her, the «richest» man of the place, the only one besides the priest to own a car. Oliva Dionne, 31 years old, is a man who works hard on his farm to support his family. He’s miles away from imagining what May 1934 will bring to him.

In these days of misery and privation, this incredible birth of quintuplets opens a window on the extraordinary. It’s as if life was sending everyone a message of hope, by permitting something to occur of which there’s only one chance on 54 million. For people living in these years of turmoil, such an event is a tangible sign that the flame of hope must be kept alive and a sign that prosperity can reign once again in the country.

The quintuplets bear a precious message : even the craziest dreams can come true. Hasn't life just given them a fascinating proof ?