Mid way through Potiche openly
gay director Francois Ozon’s period farce about how anarchy in the bedroom can
reverberate on to the shop floor, the despotic owner of a provincial umbrella
factory, Robert Pujol (Fabrice Luchini) confronts his small town’s Communist
mayor, Babin (Gerard Depardieu), threatening to reveal a dirty little secret in
the big man’s past. It seems that twenty-five years back Babin had a one day
tryst with Pujol’s wife, Suzanne (Catherine Deneuve) resulting in a now grown
and somewhat fey man child, Laurent (Jeremie Renier). Pujol threatens to expose
Babin’s shenanigans unless the mayor forces Suzanne to relinquish control of
the factory.
“It would cost you dearly if I were
to reveal that your affair resulted in a little runt, my son Laurent.”
“Your son is my son?”
“I’m affair so.”
“Are you sure?”
“I wasn’t there!”
“How strange life can be – one
minute you’re a weary old militant, the next you’re a young father. By coming
here to blackmail me you’ve made me the happiest man alive!”
Babin’s happiness is short lived –
Catherine reveals that not only is he not Laurent’s papa, but that the
cherished moment was only one of many she enjoyed: with the local accountant, a
traveling tennis pro… “So Pujol married a bourgeois nymphomaniac,” quips the
now furious politician the moment before he orders Catherine out of his tiny
car and to the indignity of walking back town in high heels.
Before the credits roll Madam Pujol
will be betrayed by a right coup within her randy little family, watch her
artistically inclined gay son free himself from a hetero incestuous
relationship only to succumb to a queer one and then gather her forces to exact
a bittersweet revenge not only on her pig of a husband but also on love sick Babin.
Ozon has set himself a dicey task,
especially for an American audience, to reveal how French women have sought to
free themselves from the double bind/double standards birdcage of bourgeois
marriage and go after real power without relinquishing their feminine charms.
To Ozon a Potiche is a
peculiarly French “object of little value and no real practical use that you
put on a shelf or a mantel.” In act one Catherine
is a human potiche or trophy wife who gets screamed at by
her asshole hubby regardless how obliging she tries to be. Her slightest
deviation from her Robert’s rules of order bring swift rebuke. “Your job is to
support my opinions.”
Predictably the only freedom from a
raging type “A” hubby is that hubby’s physical collapse, which in this case
neatly coincides with a wildcat strike at the umbrella factory led by Babin.
When Robert is taken hostage at the factory and he physically attacks Laurent
for trying to negotiate his release the only solution is for Suzanne to don her
best jewelry and turn the place upside down. Pretty soon the workers are
appeased, Laurent is designing some radical new products, Babin thinks he’s a
daddy and Suzanne’s new consort and everything is sunshine and lollipops until
Suzanne’s conservative daughter decides to put Robert back in charge.
Based on 70’s period play (by Barillet
and Gredy) Potiche will appeal especially to fans of Ozon light – the
romantic, candy colored, cartoon like ambience of 8 Women or Sitcom –
but watch out there remains a real edge, a dark satiric under taste to the
bubbly, Champaign like surface of this boulevard comedy. The seemingly removed
world of 1977 -- when a Communist French mayor still could call the shots and
when bourgeois women were just learning how to flex their power – is meant to
comment on today’s financial crisis absorbed universe where a female
presidential candidate (Segolene Royal) couldn’t quite muster the electoral
clout and an actress/first lady (Madam Sarkozy) demonstrates that soft power
still has its place.
As a movie Potiche is most
entertaining in its glorious reunion between Deneuve and Depardieu and for
queer fans – especially of earlier, darker Ozon classics like Criminal
Lovers – the sight of action star Jeremie Renier equipped with a trim
waistline, a poofy hairdo and the dirty little secret of an incestuous little
half brother.