Potiche reunties Fracois Ozon with French film favourite Catherine Deneuve.
French film icon stars in witty self-referential satire
As clever as it is lively Potiche is a retro ’70s-styled satire about class conflict marital discord and female empowerment succeeding best of all as an old-school star vehicle for French screen icon Catherine Deneuve. Reuniting with writer-director François Ozon — who previously collaborated with Deneuve in his 2002 musical 8 Women — Deneuve clearly relishes the opportunity she’s been given both to flaunt the film’s fabulous array of disco-era fashions and to upend viewers’ first impressions of her character the comfortably bourgeois “trophy housewife” of a philandering factory owner.
After years of overlooking the transgressions committed by her husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini) Suzanne Pujol (Deneuve) adjusts this balance of power when a crisis at the factory leaves her in charge. Their son Laurent (Jérémie Renier) and daughter Nadege (Karin Viard) are forced to take sides as hostilities between their parents escalate. Suzanne’s transformation into a go-getting lady of the ’80s also comes as a shock to Maurice Babin (played by Gérard Depardieu) the local deputy mayor and her old flame.
A filmmaker who shares Quentin Tarantino and Pedro Almodovar’s fondness for cinematic allusions and quotations Ozon can’t resist the temptation to surround his leading lady with references to some of her most iconic films including The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Belle de Jour . The tactic gives Potiche an air of knowing playfulness the images of Deneuve as the ever-surprising Suzanne intermingling with viewers’ memories of the star’s earlier screen personae. But whereas Ozon’s taste for pastiche often makes his films seem dispiritingly lightweight here it accentuates the surprising complexity of his characters and the warmth with which he regards them all. Regal even when wearing a red track suit Deneuve has rarely been quite so well served in the later stage of her career or so much fun to watch.
