OK, so I'm watching this movie I recorded off Sundance a couple of weeks ago - Une Femme de Ménage, directed by Claude Berri (Jean de Florette, Manon of the Spring). I have several problems, both with the movie and also with myself.
The film is about a middle-aged man, recently divorced, who finds himself in need of someone to pick up after him. He hires a young woman named Laura as a housekeeper, and a relationship begins to develop between them. Things proceed in a fairly mundane and predictable way. To describe the plot in detail would assume you haven't already figured it out by now, with probably accurate results. So, I start to wonder to myself, why am I watching this? It's not particularly fascinating or compelling, it's obviously unoriginal and hopelessly mainstream in every way. Is it because it's in French? Am I that shallow? Then I notice that he housekeeper is played by Émilie Dequenne, who became known to me with her Cannes award winning performance as the titular Rosetta. Then I realize that she's significantly more alluring and provocatively clad in this movie than she was in Rosetta. I'd never really noticed her breasts before... Naturally I'm not the only one who notices them, and soon she has moved in with Jacques, the man for whom she cleans.
Now, I need to point out a couple of things. First, Jacques is a pretty sympathetic character. He's shown to have talent (he works as a sound engineer), taste, manners, and a decent sense of decorum. In no way does he chase Laura or attempt to seduce her. She initiates everything. We never really know why - it could be opportunism, a curious fondness for older men, whatever. Jacques motives seem clear, but even so he's remarkably clear-headed about inviting this lovely young woman into his bed. He knows she's never going to stay, and he's still too on the rebound to attempt anything serious yet. Second, the story is told in a flat, emotionless tone. Berri's technique is to withdraw himself from the film, letting the actors do the work with little interference.
It's likely the best aspect of Une Femme de Ménage is that it doesn't pretend to give us motives for the characters' actions. In many cases they're obviouis, and in the rest it just doesn't seem necessary. We can extrapolate what we need, leaving the movie open to varied interpretations. To me this is refreshing. Yet, somehow I'm not really satisfied at the end. It's possible I'm trying too hard here, but I kept expecting the it to turn into a Claude Chabrol film (nobody gets murdered), but it kept teetering into Claude Lelouch territory instead (but it never fell there completely). Eventually, I got neither. There was nothing profoundly metaphysical, like if Jacques Rivette had directed it, just a flatness, as if to imply that the incidents from the film would ultimately play a very minor role in the main characters' life stories. It was odd to watch something so unambitious.
I'd fathom that thousands of films have been made about middle-aged men sating their midlife crises' with nubile young women. That I physically (balding and paunchy) and emotionally (reticent and taciturn) resemble the male lead (although he's a dozen years older than me) didn't attract me or repel me, and, while I enjoyed looking at Dequenne wear short skirts and tank tops, that alone wouldn't have held my interest for more than a half-hour. In other words, this is a very strange example of a male wish-fulfillment fantasy. I can't even say that it works on that level at all, even though that's how it looks to be initially. So, you know how, in the beginning, I said you could guess the plot straightaway? Well, even if you do, that misses the point of the film completely. Ultimately I think that's what makes it worth watching, if not worth loving.
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