TxMike
It is a fact -- different cultures have noticeably different ways to tell stories. I've mostly always enjoyed French movies, because they have a fun, quirky sensibility about them, even hard-hitting ones like "La Femme Nikita." Here the movie opens in the apartment of Jacques (Jean-Pierre Bacri), middle age and balding, with a terminally messy living space. Probably ever since his wife left him just a few months ago for another man. One day, at the bakery, he sees a small ad for a housekeeper, calls her, they agree on 60 Francs per hour, and she starts Monday. He calls her during the day, to see how it is going, and had left her 240 Francs for 4 hours of work. She tells him it will require more than 4 hours. It ends up being 7 hours.Pretty Belgian Émilie Dequenne, 20, plays Laura who becomes his housekeeper. She is a simple, pleasant sort who likes to listen to loud music when she cleans, and when she is doing nothing watches mindless TV. We find out that Jacques works in a recording studio and prefers classical music. He is more than twice her age, they have nothing in common, but ... a living space.One day not too long after she starts working for Jacques, she needs to talk. Her boyfriend and she are breaking up and he wants her to move out. With no place to go and not enough income to rent her own place, she begs to stay with Jacques, temporarily.That is where the story begins to unfold and complications arise. It would be easy to make this an ugly story with a much older man taking advantage of a girl, but it isn't written that way. It turns out to be a nice story with a very interesting development in the end. Worth a viewing if you can get the DVD. I found it at my public library.SPOILERS FOLLOW. As they are settling into a platonic relationship in Jacques' apartment, one evening Laura approaches him in her night wear, sits next to him, and begins to kiss him. He, being lonely also, is very accepting. We see them wake up together the next morning, naked, we can figure out what happened. Laura appears to have fallen for this older man, tells him she loves him, makes him tell her back. But when Jacques' wife shows up after 5 months, wanting to be taken back, he will have none of it and takes his two weeks vacation to a resort area to stay with an old friend. There Laura being the girl she is runs with the younger crowd, eventually finding a boy on the beach that she likes and tells Jacques she is going with him. The folly of youth, the implausibility of a young girl really falling for an older man. Indignity is added when the boy's mother, on the beach, refers to Laura as his daughter. He doesn't correct her, he simply realizes how foolish he was to not realize the insincerity of Laura, still just a kid.
ThurstonHunger
A slow meditation on winter/summer affairs. Less overtly this could be seen as a look at rebound relationships. We get far more of sour Jacques' side than that of sweet Laura's but it seems that neediness bordering on desperation is all they have in common. This was one flaw for me.I've seen this billed as a comedy...the laughs were harder to find than the romance. It may be that they were lost in translation...but at the same time I wonder if I am giving this film more credit than it's due. I see someone from Bucharest gave high marks to "Autumn in New York" which I will never rent. Well unless Joan Chen specifically orders me to do so...Anyway, back to "The Housekeeper", my *wife* gave up on this film. I'd say that's a pretty strong damning of this as a "romantic comedy." I actually did like the fact that Jacques was neither a filthy rich gent...nor a filthy lech. In fact, he was the more hesitant one wading into the waters here. However, Laura was allowed the depth of a kiddie pool. Another problem for me...Despite Jean-Pierre Bacri's frump and Emilie Dequenne's rump (sorry but really if we saw half of much of her mind as we did of her body that could have only helped this film) I can only manage a trois for this.3/10
noralee
"Housekeeper (Une femme de ménage)" is a wry commentary on mid-life relationships that teeters on being male fantasy wish fulfillment.
Writer/director Claude Berri uses visual and musical metaphors to show differences between characters, building on the central character's work as a sound engineer recording classical music and jazz. Jean-Pierre Bacri recalls the mid-life crisis role he wrote for himself in "The Taste of Others." We are very slowly introduced to his stuck in the mud life and the cause for it, and then slowly see him come back to life to deal with his feelings. Amusing touch that the titular nubile nymphet eschews modern conveniences in cleaning while listening to pounding hip-hop dance music. Her taste in music and manipulative need for a rent-free apartment is about all that's realistic about her. Would a Hollywood version let everybody finally act their ages?
cestmoi
A tender, surprising little film with superb performances, fine writing, good filmic qualities, and a superb music script, Une Femme... touches the veiwer, provides laughs, allows self-recognition, and shows the relative maturity of the experienced against the unintended heartlessnes of the young in a sophisitcated society. Very French. The man is intellectually prepared but still has to deal with the emotions of loss, despite the utterly ill-suitedness of his new love. The girl's neediness for approval and "love" demands his response, to which his kind and needy heart does what we expect.A perfect slice of life as has defined French film for so long. Happily. And well. Chapeaux
