Set your intellectualist angst aside for a night and enjoy the froth of gay writer-director Francois Ozon's Potiche and its all-star cast: Catherine Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini, Karin Viard, and Gerard Depardieu. Yes, it's a meringue but it's a meringue from France, where even the sweets are made with melancholy... meaning, all the couples in the comedy do not end up together. But quel laughs! It's 1977 and neglected wife Suzanne (Deneuve) takes over the management of the family umbrella factory from her sexist, philandering husband (Luchini) who inherited it from her beloved father. When she as the new boss meets with the furious striking workers for the first time, she wears her very best white fur and pearls "for respect," and when she stuns her husband with a bit of news from the past with huge ramifications, she chirps, "See! For such an old couple we still have so much to share!" The romantic hijinx aren't limited to the heteros; the gay son who doesn't quite know he's gay ends up dating a guy he doesn't realize is his half-brother.
I saw the east coast premiere last night at the Paris where, alas, my camera worked worse above water than below. If you squint through the blur you will recognize BFFs Ozon and Deneuve. After the screening I declined a request to be interviewed for French tv (if only I had been wearing a Bande du Thebes t-shirt!) but accepted an invite to the after party at Rouge Tomate. A real throwback: terrible music, great food, and hundreds of attractive people talking to each other rather than checking messages.
Potiche [roughly, trophy wife] opens in select U.S. cities on March 25.
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