Trophy Wife (2011)

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It's 1977. Suzanne Pujol (Catherine Deneuve) is a restless housewife. Her husband Robert runs her family's umbrella factory badly and dismisses Suzanne. He has workers strife, financial malfeasance, and mistresses. He gets taken captive by the workers and Suzanne comes out of the kitchen to save him. Robert has a heart attack and hospitalized. Suzanne with old flame Maurice Babin (Gérard Depardieu) and her children Joëlle and Laurent work to end the strike and fix the company. Maurice is a former union leader and the local mayor. Joëlle has marriage problems of her own and sees her mother as nothing more than a happy housewife. Laurent is a leftist artist. When Robert recovers, he and Suzanne end up fighting for the company.Catherine Deneuve is wonderful doing a few different roles of her character. I like her story. I can do without Maurice. He's a distraction and I don't like where the movie goes in the third act. I would have liked for her to stay with the company. It seems to take a slightly wrong turn. The drama starts with the company and should end with the company. It's also a missed opportunity to have fun with the employees. There is one fun scene with the union but the movie doesn't add to it. This is a good woman-power movie but it's got a few problems.

Potiche (Trophy Wife)Orange nearly killed Potiche for me. You can always tell who doesn't go to the cinema very often by the way they laugh at the Orange Wednesday adverts. Mostly they're not funny even on the first experience but after the sheer number of viewings I suffer? Nope. Not at all. It's a new definition of pain. Not that Orange cares. However, far from encouraging me to a) buy an Orange phone package or b) see the film they've hijacked for their latest campaign, their two-minute (too long) offerings usually kill any urge I once had. Rio? Nooooo. The Expendables 2? Not on your nelly! Only the intrigue of what was really being said in the Orange vs Potiche ad and the matter that it fitted a limited timeslot for viewing made me waver on this occasion.It wasn't a disaster but I don't think many readers of The Squiss will take a chance on it and I'm not really up for a second viewing. It's a 'period piece' set in chauvinistic, 1970s France. The workers in an umbrella factory run by wealthy industrialist Robert Pujol (Fabrice Luchini) tire of his tyrannical ways and opt to strike until he meets their demands for fairer pay and better conditions, holding him hostage in the process. His dutiful but suppressed and frustrated wife, Suzanne (Catherine Deneuve on assured form), takes control temporarily, finds she has a flare for it and packs him off for a recuperation break. Suzanne trundles along quite nicely and in the good company of communist mayor, Maurice Babin (Gérard Depardieu), who just happens to be Suzanne's former lover, until Robert returns and attempts to seize control again.Potiche is an old film. It's deliberately stylized that way and it will suit some people perfectly but many others will resent the dated feel it has. It's an attractive visual history lesson and entertaining for the fashion, hairstyles and décor on display. All the principals are immensely watchable, that's why they are so hugely successful in France, at least. They genuinely have chemistry and it's a pleasure to watch them orbit around each other.There are lovely touches and some surprisingly tender moments. At times it's very amusing and Suzanne is a character that surprises just when you think you understand her, but it's never really funny. Not laugh-out-loud funny. Perhaps it would have been hysterical in the 70s but director François Ozon seems to have forgotten that Potiche is a film set in the 70s, not from the 70s.Many critics rave and, yes, it has landed seven major award nominations (including four Césars, one Golden Lion and a BAFTA) but, and here's a fact that just might say something, at the time of writing this, it hasn't won any. Not one! Conversely, even Young Adult, another film I awarded just two stars, has won five awards from sixteen nominations.It's not a waste of an evening but I'm fairly certain that if you trawl through my reviews you'll find a film that will be a far more enjoyable investment of an evening. Potiche is funnier than the Orange Wednesday advert, but not much.

The French 70s. Factory occupations, managers being locked up, strikes and a strong communist party.This umbrella factory manager doesn't have an easy life, but he takes his revenge in mistreating his trophy wife, the "Potiche". She gets her revenge to, when the manager gets a heart attack, including renewed connection with her old lover, the communist mayor.The problem is the acting. Dépardieu is doing the same character he has done during too many movies now and Deneuve is not trustworthy. When French movie makers try to show us people in different states of being ridiculous, they seldom succeed. This is not 1977, it's a failed try to reborn it in 2011.

Review of POTICHE (Trophy Wife) The GoodIt's a a frothy comedy, but managed to touch upon complex issues of gender, personal triumph and defeat, marriage crisis, ideologies and political dynamics intertwined with personal lives. It's done so without getting heavy, almost effortless, making the viewing experience a delight.Suzanne Pujol is another star vehicle for Catherine Deneuve. And no matter how many times I've seen this, and regardless of her age, she seems to deserve it as her birth right. Deneuve bounced off descent performances by a star line-up of half of the who's who in French cinema including the likes of Gérard Depardieu, and it was fun to watch.The plot and the ending are not over the top, though very polished still somewhat true to life. Easy said than done for a personal triumph story in a light comedy.The BadDeneuve seems to be having so much fun in her role, but I never quite cared as much. At more than one occasions, their performance may appear effortless at first, but getting thin and tiring quickly. The characters' youthful indiscretions, twists and turns in the plots seem to be strong spices without good food to cling on to.The UglyIt is so polished that, at times, I feel three or four short trailers would have done the job. Kind of like visiting a small pantheon of contemporary French acting Gods in a lazy Sun afternoon.