Une femme de ménage

This film is both comedy and a melodrama about a Parisian classical music producer who lives alone in his Paris flat. He hires a housekeeper without references or much experience. Jacques was brilliantly played by French actor, Jean-Pierre Bacri. The housekeeper, Laura, is perfectly played by Emilie Dequenne. Laura ends up moving into his flat where their musical tastes reflect their ages. They also have an intimate relationship which leads to a trip to Normandy Beach where they see his old friend. Most of the film is about Jacques and Laura's relationship. Jacques is overcoming from a painful breakup with his ex-wife. Laura needs a place to crash and he offers assistance. In the end, they become friends and lovers but I think they both needed each other's companionship for the loneliness felt at the time.

"Housekeeper (Une femme de ménage)" is a wry commentary on mid-life relationships that teeters on being male fantasy wish fulfillment.

Writer/director Claude Berri uses visual and musical metaphors to show differences between characters, building on the central character's work as a sound engineer recording classical music and jazz.

Jean-Pierre Bacri recalls the mid-life crisis role he wrote for himself in "The Taste of Others." We are very slowly introduced to his stuck in the mud life and the cause for it, and then slowly see him come back to life to deal with his feelings.

Amusing touch that the titular nubile nymphet eschews modern conveniences in cleaning while listening to pounding hip-hop dance music. Her taste in music and manipulative need for a rent-free apartment is about all that's realistic about her.

Would a Hollywood version let everybody finally act their ages?

Claude Berri's latest film that just arrived in America is tailor made for losers of a certain age. M. Berri's picture is a fantasy that most men, abandoned by their former partners, for whatever reason, can dream of a great affair with a Lolita-like woman, who also can clean and put order in their own messy lives.

Jacques lives alone, but he can't bring order into his own existence, after his wife leaves. He then decides to take a chance on an inexperienced young woman, who has more than cleaning in mind. Laure, the housekeeper, he hires, is a woman in need of a great make over. She is as plain, as she is decent; she doesn't even know how to clean the apartment with the vacuum cleaner, preferring to do it the old fashioned way.

Slowly, but surely, she begins to attract this lonely Jacques, until they end romantically involved. Just when one thought this was the romance of a lifetime between these two star crossed lovers, M. Berri has a surprise for us.

Both Jean Pierre Bacri, as Jacques, with his Beagle face and droopy eyes, and Emilie Dequenne, as Laure, are very good.

He's 50ish, contended being recently single, and in need of a housekeeper for his small bachelor flat in Paris. She's young, beautiful, deliciously jiggly, most accommodating in every way, and in need of work. He hires her as a part time housekeeper and she slowly insinuates herself into his life while he simply enjoys her, keeping things in perspective in a most mature way. "The Housekeeper" is a delightful for-men-only slice of life flick which is a sweet little tonic for the male midlife crisis. Go ahead, guys. Admit you're human and enjoy. (B)

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.