Potiche

Catherine Deneuve is best known as a 1960s sex symbol and star of art house films like Luis Bunuel’s infamous and quite bizarre erotic fantasy Belle De Jour, and Roman Polanski’s literally off the wall claustrophobic horror Repulsion. Therefore, appearing in her late sixties in a perfectly pleasant 1970s-set French comedy comes as a bit of a shock. That said, in this film she once again plays a woman struggling to overcome a repressed lifestyle, admittedly in ways nowhere near as deranged as before, but still some things don’t change.

Here Deneuve plays Suzanne, the titular Potiche (“Trophy Wife”) who lives a tedious life married to a foul factory owner (Fabrice Luchini) who forces her to live a quiet, tediously mundane life, whilst constantly cheating on her and whose workers equate him to Hitler. Of course, being a story of empowerment, when her husband becomes ill she takes over the family firm and finds she rather likes it. All of which help remind us that Deneuve was always more than simply a pretty face, and is extremely watchable and believable as this character who evolves and finely develops the courage to stand against her oafish husband. With great ease she make us believe in her having a hidden past, although that said maybe this has something to do with actresses back catalogue. She is perfectly watchable, particularly when she interacts with Barbine (Gerard Depardieu) the kindly local MP who is secretly in love with her. The way they interact is rather touching and sweet for the most part, though at times he does steal the show a little.

That said, perhaps the problem with Potiche is that while perfectly pleasant it never really goes into anything resembling new territory, as stories of wives overcoming oppressive husband are extremely common. As well as this, for all our interest in the characters the climax of the film never really seems to pay off effectively, and feels a little disappointing as it seemingly fails to take into account all the characters. The other crucial problem is that when the play the film is based upon was written, its story and ideas may have worked well, but today it feels almost too polite and a little out of date. Its sexual politics and indeed politics full stop are those of 1977, which as such does not really appeal to the modern audience. Yet in spite of this it does manage to be on the whole generally witty and funny, the humour working rather well even if not revolutionary and often about ideas that now appear a little out of date, meaning that it is not quite as funny and certainly not as cutting as it perhaps it should have been.

Potiche is thus a thoroughly enjoyable and watchable film, but its lacks edge, and suffers for it, failing to do anything particularly special or different. Yet it still in spite of this it manages to be entertaining; it just is not anything particularly special.

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