Catherine Deneuve wants to be more than just a trophy housewife in POTICHE
POTICHE (TROPHY WIFE) (François Ozon, 2010)
Opens Friday, March 25
www.musicboxfilms.com/potiche
www.francois-ozon.com
Legendary French star Catherine Deneuve radiates a colorful glow throughout her latest film, Potiche (Trophy Wife), her smile lighting up the screen as it has throughout her long career, which now comprises more than one hundred movies over more than fifty years. Reunited with writer-director François Ozon (2002’s 8 Women) and Gérard Depardieu (they first appeared together in Claude Berri’s Je Vous Aime in 1980 and most recently in André Téchiné’s Les Temps Qui Changent in 2004), Deneuve was nominated for a César for her role as Suzanne Pujol, a trophy housewife who primarily serves as arm candy for her husband, Robert (Fabrice Luchini), who runs Suzanne’s family’s umbrella factory like a tyrant and is a little too close to his secretary, Nadège (César nominee Karin Viard). When Robert is taken hostage during a nasty strike at the plant, Suzanne is forced into action, deciding to run the business with the help of her counterculture son, Laurent (Jérémie Rénier), and her conservative daughter, Joëlle (Judith Godrèche). At first clashing with the mayor, Maurice Babin (Depardieu), Suzanne is soon considering rekindling her long-ago affair with the rather rotund Maurice as she realizes there’s so much more to life than being a wealthy appendage. Loosely adapted from a Theatre de Boulevard comedy by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, Potiche is a charming throwback to 1970s female-empowerment movies, depicting long-held-back women suddenly grabbing the reins and embracing their personal and professional freedom, getting out from under the thumb of repressive societal conventions. Ozon infuses the film with numerous references to Deneuve’s history, evoking such seminal works as The Young Girls of Rochefort, Belle de Jour, and, of course, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and the costumes — particularly Deneuve’s fabulous fashion sense, which often dominates the scene — are a hoot, earning costume designer Pascaline Chavanne a much-deserved César nomination, but things get haywire in the final section, getting too silly and going too far over the top when politics come into play. Still, Potiche ably represents its genre, having fun with itself, which rubs off on the audience, who will have plenty of fun as well.
Based on the 1928 novel by Joseph Kessel, whose L’armée des ombres was turned into Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 French Resistance drama Army of Shadows, Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour stars the elegant Catherine Deneuve as Séverine Serizy, a bored housewife who finds the excitement she’s missing at home by becoming a high-class prostitute by day, when her husband (Jean Sorel) is at work. But when one of her clients, Marcel (Pierre Clémenti), starts falling for her, her life turns more complicated than she’s ever imagined in all her fantasies. Buñuel won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for this erotically charged story that features a shocking ending.Belle de Jour is screening March 13 as part of BAMcinématek’s “Deneuve” series, which continues through March 31 with such films as Le Sauvage (Call Me Savage) (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, 1975), Don’t Touch the White Woman (Touche pas à la femme blanche) (Marco Ferreri, 1975), Scene of the Crime (Le lieu du crime) (André Téchiné, 1986), and Donkey Skin (Peau d’âne) (Jacques Demy, 1970). 
French auteur André Téchiné (RENDEZ-VOUS, WILD REEDS), who specializes in deeply emotional dramas, follows up the wholly unnecessary AIDS film WITNESSES with the equally unnecessary THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. Adapted from a play by Jean-Marie Besset based on a real-life scandal, the films stars the charming Emilie Dequenne as Jeanne, a young woman trying to find her place in the world. Flighty and flakey, Jeanne agrees to go on a job interview with a high-powered lawyer, Samuel Bleistein (Michel Blanc), whom her mother, Louise (Catherine Deneuve), used to work for and nearly had an extramarital fling with. But when Jeanne’s burgeoning relationship with a suspicious wrestler named Franck (Nicolas Devauchelle) ends in extreme violence, she acts out in a way that results in a national scandal built on lies. As with WITNESSES, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN has little to say about its subject matter. The characters seem lost, wandering around aimlessly in Téchiné’s misguided story, and Jeanne feels particularly outdated and irrelevant even though she’s the title character. Téchiné, who divides the film into two parts, “Circumstances” and “Consequences,” admits to having significantly changed both the actual events and the play; perhaps he should have left well enough alone.