Starring: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Émilie Dequenne, Brigitte Catillon, Catherine Breillat Script: Claude Berri, Christian Oster Original Title: Une femme de ménage Running Time: 1:31 Country: France Year: 2003
If you're looking for a low-key and slightly twisted French comedy, without the usual Luc Besson touch of triviality—think Wasabi, Fanfan la Tulipe & the Taxi trilogy—The Housekeeper is certainly a good representative. Directed by Claude Berry (Jean de Florette, Lucie Aubrac), the film focuses on Jacques (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a recently separated middle-aged man who hires Laura (Émilie Dequenne), a young housekeeper to clean his apartment. After only a few days, the girl is kicked out from her boyfriend's apartment and moves in with him, allowing for a strange relationship to grow between the two of them.
Bacri has mastered the art of playing awkward and grumpy middle-aged men (The Taste of Others, Un Air de Famille) and his presence is always a good sign if you find the raw humor in his bitter incarnations. His character and persona contrast well with the freshness and bold attitude of Dequenne (Rosetta, Brotherhood of the Wolf). The two form a barely legal couple but you never really notices it as the script and the actors underplay it, preferring to work on the weirdness of the situation. This is a movie where you get to smile and laugh without ever being served with actual gags, in the vein of dysfunctional family tales. Another asset is that the film never tries to judge the characters or give a morality lesson but when the open ending comes, the logical rules of nature seem to have finally taken over.
Berri's direction is discreet, leaving the reins of the Housekeeper to the two talented actors, who bring it to life and keep it plausible and enjoyable from beginning to end. The cinephiles will also recognize Catherine Breillat—the sulfurous director of Romance X & Sex Is Comedy—in the role of a liberated femme. And as the friend who lives, breathes, eats and paints chickens, offers more than one moment of comedy.
Only a near drowning seems very out of place in a film (a Jaws-type scene that only lasts a few seconds but isn't fair to Bacri's character) that is ultimately about the calm waters of French maturity when it comes to l'amour. However, the push and pull of emotions in a relationship never leads to the ultimatums, emotional breakdowns and final walk into the sunset that so characterizes American romantic comedies.
A film that will certainly reinforce the fantasy of the French maid in this country.
The Housekeeper review
