Housekeeper [DVD] [2002] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

 

 

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If Une Femme de Ménage (The Housekeeper) is, as some critics have said, a French souffle, it was made with bitter-sweet chocolate. This somewhat rueful, somewhat ironic and generally good-natured film is the story of Jacques Gautier (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a middle-aged sound engineer in Paris whose wife has left him for another man. Gautier is a reasonably fit, attractive, balding man still coming to grips with living a life without a wife. His apartment is a mess. So he decides to hire a housekeeper, someone who will come in once a week and clean up after him. The woman who answers his ad is 20-year-old Laura (Emillie Dequenne) who, it turns out, has never been a housekeeper but who needs a job. If Jacques is the kind of man who hurries to clean up his apartment before the housekeeper arrives, Laura is the kind of young woman who cleans more or less well while wearing very short skirts and tops that allow for a generous decolletage. It's not long before Jacques decides, accurately, that he needs his apartment cleaned more often than once a week, and that Laura sees him as someone she could like a lot. In fact, it's not too long before she confides that she must leave the place she shares because she's splitting up. She has no place to move to. Before Gautier is quite aware of the consequences, Laura has accepted his invitation to temporarily stay with him. And before long, as well as cleaning the apartment, cooking the meals and ironing his clothes, she's sharing his bed. Gautier doesn't object, really, especially when the wife who left him, played grimly by Catherine Breillat, shows up at his door and tells him she'd like to come back. Gautier is wise enough to have none of that.

When Jacques decides to get away and clear his head with a visit to an old friend on the Brittany coast, he suddenly finds Laura is accompanying him. For a 50-year-old man, having a 20-year-old lover has its advantages. Ah, but...when Laura wants to dance until midnight, Jacques begins to think about going to sleep at 10. When Laura sunbathes at the beach, Jacques remembers to wear his cap. When Laura urges him to go swimming in the ocean, Jacques can only think about how cold the water might be. When Laura enjoys her rock music at full volume, Jacques tries to listen to his classical music on low. The battle of the sexes combined with the battle of the generations was never more poignant. And when it's time to leave, and after Laura has taken to wearing Jacques' old wedding ring so that they can pretend to be married, Laura discovers a new truth. "In Paris I'm you're housekeeper. I feel good here. I want to stay." When Jacques says he must return to his job, Laura adds, "I've met someone." Poor Jacques. Is it with regret or relief that he finds himself sitting on the beach with Laura on one side and the mother of Laura's new friend on his other...the attractive mother who thinks Laura is Jacques' daughter. We know what Laura is going to do. Other than return to Paris, do we know what Jacques is going to do? Does Jacques know? For middle-aged men who think 20-year-old crumpets will bring new life and energy, they may want to avoid this movie. For everyone else, it's a pleasant and amusing excursion into rueful honesty.

One of the reasons the movie works so well is the performance of Jean-Pierre Bacri. He's a fine actor with a face that can look skeptical, quizzical and thoughtful, as well as, in some of his movies, tough. He reminds me a little in looks of Michael Ironside. Watch him in Place Vendome; he keeps us guessing whether he's a tough guy or a sympathetic guy. Emillie Dequenne gives us an uneasily pleasant portrayal of a young woman who doesn't want to hurt anyone, but, after all, believes life is meant to be enjoyed as it comes. However, it's the women of Jacques' own age who make interesting impressions, even in small parts. While Breillat might make us think twice, she's a vivid presence. The actresses who portray Claire, an old friend of Jacques', and the mother of Laura's new best friend, give us portrayals of such attractive, friendly sophistication that we hope the next time around Jacques sticks with his own age.

The DVD transfer is fine. There are a couple of inconsequential extras.

I almost gave up on this one forty minutes in. Don't you do that. The ending is superb.

Premise: working class girl gets dumped by her boyfriend and seeks work by housekeeping.

Well, that can lead to something better if you keep house for the right person.

Jacques (Jean-Pierre Bacri) who recently got walked out on by his wife, and who, not so incidentally looks sixty--well, fifty-five--(actually he was barely fifty when this was made, but you get the point) gets his ad for a housekeeper answered by Laura (Emilie Dequenne) who is twentysomething--a young twentysomething.

I guess there is not much else to say, and to be honest I decided I would force myself to watch the inevitable. But the director is Claude Berri who directed two of the best movies I ever saw: Manon of the Spring (1986) and Jean De Florette (1986).

And so I stayed with it. At about the fifty minute mark the movie started to get interesting. I could feel that old guy/young girl love affair was going to take an unexpected fork in the road. (As Yogi said, if you come to a fork in the road, take it. The players have no choice.) Obviously, old guy/young girl can end only one way: young girl leaves old guy for young guy. This is biology. It will be painful.

Claude Berri knows all this, and probably a lot better than I do. And so guess what?

Well, I won't tell. But you will find that the last thirty-some minutes of this sexy romantic comedy delightful, and especially the very, very clever and most satisfying ending.

Just prior to that Laura asks Jacques for his blessing. He won't give it, but she is right: he should. And then when we get the final "life is so...lifelike" grimace on Jacques's face, we can only smile.

Emilie Dequenne is delightful as the strangely wise and very natural Laura, and Jean-Pierre Bacri is winning as the old guy who knows better, but on reflection should thank his lucky stars.

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