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As Good As It Gets

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

If Une Femme de Ménage (The Housekeeper) is, as some critics have said, a French soufflé, 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.

This movie has a light plot and lightly written characters: a middle-class neurotic-grumpy-artist falling in love with his young-trashy-placid housemaid. There is a very fine line between lightness and shallowness and that movie can't avoid falling into clichés, especially regarding the world outside the two main characters (like: the ex wife sleeping with the best friend). But the actors Emilie Dequenne and Jean-Pierre Bacri are just so generous towards their characters that they make them real, and utterly lovable. They are captivating and make that little unpretentious movie an enchanting delight.

The best thing coming from this Berri film is that plausibility and prediction conspire to improve a weak plot. The spectator, however, gets the surprise of his life when, in a sudden twist, the film reveals he has been watching the wrong movie. Give the kudos to the actors: sexily believable and deceitfully ordinary. Jacques and Laura, the main characters in this autumn-spring old line plot, early show their true self. She, young and beautiful, knows he is in a middle of a sentimental crisis. He, mature and confused, is never deceived by her egotist intentions. A sexual relationship is sure to occur, and so it does. But, it comes as a strange mix of feelings and desires, that the film never gets it clear. That's the relevance of this story: life cannot be deconstructed and explained in terms of art. Just the mirror, as the good Stendhal knew almost two centuries ago. Une femme de menage (more explicative than the English title) is a quiet thought on the passing of chances and the options we make; and a lecture on the futility of adapting our expectations to a self-deceitful sense of self-importance.

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