Ma part du gâteau

I had not great expectations for 'Ma part du gâteau'. France, 42, raising her 4 daughters alone, loses her job and goes on to work as a maid for a big bad trader. The premise seemed interesting and Klapisch certainly knows how to tell simple stories in a lively manner. But the title is really dumb and dull and I was unable to remember it for the couple of weeks prior to release. Klapisch's trademark is to use simple titles borrowed from popular phrases, but My Piece of Cake/Taking My Cut is not a visually stimulating simple idea, it's only a flat commonplace.

Directors back in the Studio System could moan about not being responsible for a bad title. Klapisch, after a decade of well-deserved success, enjoys total creative control, so the title is his mistake. And it perfectly stands for the big flaws, the failure to build up something really engaging on this interesting premise.

Lazy comes to my mind, yet that may be too harsh on Klapisch. He excels at brisk light comedies and may well have gone out of his league here in this attempt at social satire. If you look back at Klapisch movies, starting with 'Le Péril Jeune', you realize their strength is simplicity and rhythm. He tried his style on something more serious and under delivers. Worse, he totally misses the mark.

Lazy is however the right word for an 'auteur' who earned his spot at the top, with the power to shoot whatever he wants. OK, fashionable 'auteurs' like Cédric Klapisch end up working with too many yes-men, leaving them with little challenging creative opportunities, but that's laziness all the same. Laziness to come up with such a flimsy script on such a challenging subject matter, and laziness to cast the bland Gilles Lellouche as the hyper-realistic financial shark that should have been too fascinating for our own good.

If it's not laziness, that means Klapisch has risen to his level of incompetence and will only be able to dish out the same youthful light comedies again and again.

.... yes in that sweet spot. Kitchen-sink and social classes but with comedic and Gallic energy

The casting is spot-on. Gilles Lellouche always does a great selfish male character with a modicum of empathic quality trying to shine through but failing to get an expression

The France character here ; the name picked to show a state-of-play in 2011 when the film was made no doubt pitches greedy US style trader vs one of their victims

2023 when i write this many more have understood there would never be a trickle-down. The trickle was always gonna go up not down and that was the plan from the start .... so the stupid last 40 years might finally come to a close soon

Neoliberalism/deregulation/globalization and all this inhuman insanity has now FULLY shown its true face and all the gangsters who promoted it hopefully one day will be in the dock (if posthumously) with Milton Ronnie and Maggie and Tony and Emmanuel and all the bit players.

I agree with all the guys who discussed it here. The final twist is an error of judgment on France's part here as it was for Klapisch. Two wrongs do not ever make a right ... not sure what either were really thinking but hey minor blemish great idea as a film and YES the message is totally on the correct target.

Hi

This is a great film I cannot understand the low score, some of the earlier reviewers got the point some missed it.

Its the story of a redundant woman who goes to work for the trader who helped close down the firm she worked for.

I's about class struggle, family , globalization,love, powerless of the individual.

And also it dose n't really take sides as it shows the trader as a victim too.

Might be the best film I've seen in the past year.

Gerry