‘Potiche‘, François Ozon‘s 2010 film brings together Catherine Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini and Gérard Depardieu, which is reason enough to want to see it without delay. The film brings to the screen a plot inspired by a play that was successfully performed in the Parisian theaters of the time. The feeling I had while watching it was exactly this – I was lucky to enter a theater where a light comedy – like many of the comedies staged in Paris – was being played, with an exceptional cast. Even if the respective roles are not career peaks for the great actors on the stage, you can’t leave the theater unsatisfied.
The story takes happens in 1977. Suzanne Pujol is the heiress of an umbrella factory that is run with a capitalist iron hand by her husband, Robert. The beautiful grandmother is reduced to the role of ‘trophy wife’ (‘potiche’ in French), jogging, gardening and taking care of the household (with the help of the maid). When a labor dispute breaks out at the factory and Robert is sequestered and then suffers a heart attack, Suzanne assumes the role of an active participant in running the business, a role her husband had denied her for many years. Together with her daughter and son, Suzanne manages not only to resolve the conflicts, but also to make the business prosper, waking-up her long-suppressed talents. Robert, however, recovers from his illness and returns, not being too happy with Suzanne’s role or her ideas. In addition, there is a sentimental complication related to the relations between Suzanne and Maurice Babin, a communist politician with whom the woman had an affair long ago and who now plays an important role in local politics.
This whole story sounds like a political farce played out on a stage, and so it is. François Ozon decided that if it’s theater, theater be, and he didn’t avoid the theatrical lines in the script. In addition, he shot many scenes as if the actors were looking towards the fourth wall, that of the audience in front of the stage. If we understand and accept the conception, the result is not bad. We are dealing with a script that sounds like a play, a sparkling but a little too predictable comedy, with three great actors who are happy to act together. Catherine Deneuve seems to have found the recipe for slowing down time, Gérard Depardieu has put on a lot of pounds but this sin we can forgive him, and Fabrice Luchini is more diabolical than ever. Watching or re-watching ‘Potiche‘ can cause no regrets.