Hysteria (**3/4)

With a lot of nodding and winking about its main subject, this drama settles for being a cute story of a doctor (Hugh Dancy) and a spunky proto-feminist (Maggie Gyllenhaal) rather than anything deeply revealing of Victorian England. The film purports to be based on “true events. Really.” But its plot so obviously neatened up and geared to modern sensibilities and full of speechifying that it’s obviously heavily fictionalized. Dancy plays Mortimer Granville, who pioneered a revolutionary treatment for the wobbly but common diagnosis once thought, we are told, to describe half the women in London, the previous state of the art being digital penetration of the female in question. Amusing, but only that, and, given the above, roughly predictable.

IMDb link

viewed 6/13/12 7:20 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 6/13/12

Potiche (***1/4)

“Trophy housewife” is how the title gets translated in the English subtitles of this breezy French import. Catherine Deneuve, who’s won some trophies of her own, plays the title role. As the wife of a 1970s umbrella magnate, she’s learned to live with being ignored, condescended to, and probably cheated on by her wealthy spouse (Fabrice Luchini). Unfortunately for him, while she tolerates his ill treatment, his factory employees won’t, and their threats to strike will have unexpected repercussions on his family, which includes a left-leaning son who sympathizes the workers and a right-leaning daughter who doesn’t. Turns out, the housewife is the only one who can step in and make peace.

This of course would be a creaky storyline today, but director and screenwriter François Ozon has kept the setting of the play he’s adapted, and he’s also filmed it in a style that will remind viewers of a time long ago, when feminism still seemed new, young women had Farrah Fawcett haircuts, and communist mayors of small French cities were, presumably, common. He’s co-opted the bright look of 1970s television, utilizing a groovy font for the credits, a period-sounding score (reminding me of Marvin Hamlisch’s in The Informant!), and even touches like a split-screen scene.

Ozon’s movie occupies the territory between homage and parody, not unlike his 8 Women, which also featured Deneuve. Thus, while well-plotted and relatively realistic, it’s also whimsical and comic in its retro stylings and acting. The communist mayor, by the way, is played by Gerard Dépardieu, the onetime leading man who’s made a Brandoesque transformation, weight wise. The potiche turns out to have a past. Deneuve fell for Dépardieu 30 years ago in The Last Metro, but here, she turns him down. Complications ensue, all in good fun.

IMDB link

viewed 4/23/11 at Ritz 5 and reviewed 4/24/11