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One of the many ways that European and Hollywood films differ is that the former is willing to dwell on the ordinary while the latter usually prefers to make stories bigger than they merit. The French film The Midwife (2017) is an example of storytelling that works simply by putting two very different women together and watching how they resolve the webs of emotion that have become tangled over time.

As she approaches her 50th birthday, devoted midwife and single mother Claire (Catherine Frot) faces professional upheaval when her clinic must close. Her orderly conservative life is fractured further when the woman she blames for her father's suicide suddenly makes contact after 30 years. Opposites in every way, Beatrice (Catherine Deneuve) is manipulative, irresponsible, and a chronic gambler who loves fine wine and rich food. Claire's suspicion that Beatrice wants something is proved correct when the latter confides that she is dying, homeless and without support. Initial rejection turns into understanding for the midwife whose instincts are to nurture life, as she juggles the needs of Beatrice, the clinic's closure, and her neighbour's romantic advances. When her son announces he is quitting medical school and his girlfriend is pregnant, the always competent Claire confronts being helpless in a sea of change.

These narrative strands and their complications are not what sustains the story. Rather it is the way these two icons of French cinema fill out their roles and the emotional connections they make. The flamboyant Beatrice is dramatic and unfiltered, while the restrained Claire is measured and well aware of the other's character flaws. One is a taker, the other a giver, yet both are engaging in different ways. As Beatrice confronts her fate, Claire continues bringing new life into the world in several very moving childbirth scenes that anchor the earthy realism and ordinariness of the story. The filming style dwells on warm and intimate moments, capturing both the charms and emotional swirls of French village life. Great acting and filming complements a script that finds uncontrived humour in everyday places.

Richly nuanced performances in the European cinematic tradition are at the heart of The Midwife. This is not a film that offers rising tensions towards a big resolution. Instead you are likely to leave the cinema with a bitter-sweet afterglow that comes from sharing moments of unbridled joy, sadness, and the ambivalent ordinariness of our existence.

Another recent French film that I felt was just OK.

It was not bad, but it's nothing to brag about. Everything is pretty mediocre.

Sure, it's a lovey and interesting story about Midwife who is contacted by her father's mistress 30 years after the relationship because she going through cancer and wanted to see her and her father again, but as it turns out the father is dead leaving the midwife to be the only thing close to a family the mistress has, and most of the movie is about if the midwife feels the same way.

it was mostly drama with a few funny moments but nothing really made me laugh or cry, it was all too bland in the delivery.

I'm still waiting for the french to come out with something like the Intouchables again.

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I really enjoyed this movie; in part as it starred my favorite actress from 2016: Catherine Frot, and her exquisite performance as 'Marguerite'. Frot has such stillness and poise on screen, but can also command great presence with minimal effort. Here, as the titular 'Midwife, Catherine Frot is delivered a role that gives her a chance to really shine. From the opening scenes her 'Claire' is a good woman; a skilled professional but lacking a personal life or much hope it seems. Blessed with a son she only sees fleetingly, her life is turned upside down when Beatrice played by Catherine Deneuve re-enters her radius after vanishing more than 3 decades before and causing Claire's father (one time lover of Beatrice) irreparable damage and an indelible imprint for young Claire. It is a fascinating dance that these two characters create through their often awkward scenes together.

The film is only a success because of the chemistry between these two marvellous actresses. The narrative ambles all over the place, messily edited and at times a little predictable, but seeing these two share the screen is pure magic, and compensates for where the film is otherwise lacking. Beneath the choppy script lies some rich fabric about life and death; life changes and the power of forgiveness and redemption: always soulful pursuits for the big screen. I wanted this to be perfection; of course it is not. Catherine Deneuve deserves an Oscar nomination for this; she is unafraid to show her age; her flaws and creates a memorable screen character, a former good time gal, whose life is slipping away from her, as she clings to the joie devivre that had sustained her. It is a privilege to watch a screen icon; still beautiful, but displaying how beauty can fade. There is much dignity here from both Catherine the Greats!

The Midwife (Sage Femme) was shown at the 2017 Berlinale out of competition. The film provokes many questions and the most important one is why this trashy opus of Martin Provost was selected for the program of the festival. Perhaps the answer is the participation of the great French cinema legend Catherine Deneuve.

Catherine Frot plays the main part in the film, the boring midwife Claire Breton, Deneuve plays her friend Béatrice Sobolevski. We can only feel sorry for Deneuve who agreed for a role in such a forgettable picture which has mediocre camera-work, terrible lighting, uninteresting dialogue and a complete lack of an artistic vision. What is even sadder is that many critics are calling this her best role in years! The film is itself a symbol of banality which dominates cinematography today.

Although the picture pretends to be a dramatic-comedy, the audience at the press screening never laughed. The jokes were not funny, the characters paper thin. Provost has a reputation of being a director who is an expert on women's psychology but this film proves that his esteem is hugely overrated. The film which is about a midwife features multiple childbirth scenes filmed in a real hospital however these scenes only show the superficial side of the process and leave a disgusting aftertaste.

Read more at: http://indie-cinema.com/2017/02/the-midwife/

Nice story line, great acting and a subtle and beautiful face to face between two complex and good-hearted women whose common feature is sweetly whispered at the end of the movie: for 2 women whose birth was not so welcome we've made it fairly well. It is all about memory, regret and will to go ahead. Great movie.

The premise of this story is preposterous: long ago, midwife Claire's father had a mistress named Beatrice (Deneuve), and he killed himself when she left him. After many years, Beatrice gets in touch with Claire (Frot), who is obviously none too pleased.

Covering the unlikely relationship of these two women would make the movie interesting enough, but the plot twist is that Beatrice is terminally ill and Claire is the only one who can take care of her. In a role reversing her profession, Claire should ease Beatrice' s itinerary towards death.

The first problem is that Deneuve does not look like a terminally ill woman. She looks very good, but that is not what her part calls for. Then, her character is extroverted, warm and much more charming than Frot's, which makes it difficult to sympathise with the wronged woman. Also, the chronology is weird: Claire's father was a champion swimmer and he is seen in old pictures sporting 70s hairdo and swimming trunks. However, Frot is from 1956 and looking her age, which would make her father (at least) in his late thirties in the 70s. Swimmers are at their peak in their twenties...

Unless the characters are supposed to be younger than their real age, but then why not hire younger actors?

Finally, some of the dialogue is cringe worthy: would a father really discuss a mistress'kissing technique with his daughter?

I tried to put myself in Claire's shoes, but even with the added layer of sleaze that seems to permeate French culture, I could not imagine my father sharing intimate details of a failed relationship (nor I would have wanted him to). I also tried Beatrice's shoes and I absolutely cannot imagine myself approaching an ex-lover's daughter, because I am ill and I want to make amends before I go. Not even if that particular lover of long ago was the only "true love" of a very turbulent life.

This is a life enhancing film, and I cannot even begin to comprehend why it has been called trashy. Catherine Deneuve gives one of her greatest performances, and a mention must be made of Mylene Demongeot. During the one scene she was in she almost stole the film for me. For those who have never heard of her get hold of a copy of ' The Witches of Salem ' with Simone Signoret and Yves Montand. She stole the film back in the 50's and she can still do it now. But it is Deneuve who shows that she has total control of the film in a life affirming role. She wants to live, and live she does to the limit of her joy and her endurance. Anybody who may think this was an easy role to play and succeed is an idiot. She shows herself as she is now and the beauty, the power of presence and the way each gesture and look of the eye advances the film is a miracle of acting. Catherine Frot is excellent and France has yet another powerful actor and I hope she is given equally good roles for a long time to come. Above all I did not find the film distressing. Life is distressing and the film has the strength of will to show that it can be painful from birth until death. But between these two inevitable events of our lives we live, messily, cleanly, hurting people and being hurt. This illusion that Deneuve is a taker and not a giver in the film is simplistic. She needs a lot from others. She shows it and she gives when she can, and watch how through the force of her nature she releases Catherine Frot from a certain primness; makes her smile, lets down her hair. A great film and the title in English may put off many. ' Sage femme ' does mean midwife, but there is still the resonance in the the French title of wisdom and a wisdom life can bring.

Unlike many Hollywood films, I find that foreign films render the complexity of characters and relationships more akin to real life, and so it is in "The Midwife." The film also excels in giving us a context for the fraught relationship of the two women leads, Claire and Beatrice, but not with easy flashbacks or an improbable verbal summary; instead, their history unfolds the way it would in real life--in bits of dialogue that not only bring up the past but show us how, although buried by Claire and superficially dismissed by Beatrice, it has lingered sufficiently to scar them and to force them to come to new terms in addressing their present situation. I love the dimensionality of Claire: she has a job she loves (midwife in a hospital) but it's threatened by the hospital's drive for technology that will bring greater profits; she has a son who is also complex; a hobby (gardening); a fraught relationship with her mother; memories of her father that are both painful and loving. In short, she is a full- fledged human being. This is a fine film that centers on people, not violent or titillating events.

Midwife = Wise woman in translation. This movie is about two wise women. Unlike Hollywood you are not drawn to a particular conclusion. You see the main characters interact with each other and what they don't say and their behavior towards each other, tells you more at times than the dialog. See it for yourself. Your own experiences will influence it's interpretation. I enjoyed this movie. You rarely see movies like this in America.

Viewed at the 2017 Berlin Film festival. MIDWIFE -- (Sage Femme) with Catherine Deneuve (73) and Catherine Frot. The second film of the day at the lavish Zoo Palace venue, was "Sage-Femme" which does not mean "Wise woman" but is the French term for a midwife. Catherine Frot, (born 1956) is the attractive somewhat older woman Claire (she has a grown son) who is a dedicated professional deliverer of babies (we see a number of such deliveries in bloody stomach churning closeups of new borns) but this is not the main story. It turns out that Claire is the resentful daughter of a wayward mother who left home thirty years earlier, Catherine Deneuve. Once Deneuve (still looking good at 73) enters the picture the story becomes a battle of wills between two strong women but when we find that Deneuve is suffering from a terminal brain cancer daughter Claire, until now full of resentment and anger, relents and takes her in.

Claire is a health food advocate and Deneuve just the opposite. She loves her red meat and wine even if it will kill her. There is a side story involving a single unattractive middle aged truck driver who falls in love with Claire and she more or less out of loneliness accepts his advances. But this is excess baggage only there to advance the basic plot between the two intense Catherines. Many little details such as a valuable family ring enter into the story but at the end, Deneuve, rather than continuing to be a burden on Claire literally jumps in the lake (a pond near the vegetable garden Claire maintains) leaving a most touching Farewell note, bearing only an imprint of her lipstick and the ring that has kept changing fingers. This is a very strong thespian pas-de-deux, directed by Martin Provost, and is another strong contender for a best acress bear -- and a best co-star prize, if there was such an award, for Deneuve.

image1.jpegThe Two Catherines, Deneueve and Frot, in "Sage-Femme"

Frot and Deneuve are magical together. The acting is sublime.

What a wonderful film.

The interplay of the two women is a treat to watch.

Watching the film was like breathing in fresh air, serene with bouts of controlled mania and amusement.

Catherine Frot, at the centre of the film, experiences sheer joy through her work as a midwife; the rest of her life is mostly empty.

After meeting up with Catherine Deneuve, her late father's mistress, after a thirty year break, we see her life changing as she slowly and inevitably falls in love with her new mother figure.

Enjoyed watching this very much, a real unexpected treat.

A beautiful story, beautifully told and filmed. Great acting from the two Catherine's and also from Olivier Gourmet as Paul. Unlike some other reviewers, I had no problems with the believability of the story. Pacing is just how I like it. Leaves a really warm feeling afterwards. Memorable. Would be happy to watch it again in a few years time.

I gave this 30 minutes to get going, but there were no signs of anything of interest developing and so early termination seemed both appropriate and ethical.

Perhaps it picks up pace later on, but I just didn't care what happened to either of the two principal characters. (I actually had a sense of deja vu while watching this: perhaps it's that Catherine Deneuve has played several similar characters in this latter part of her career?)

Sage femme (2017) is a French film written and directed by Martin Prevost.

Catherine Deneuve stars as Béatrice Sobo, an elegant woman who seeks out the daughter of her former lover.

Catherine Frot portrays Claire Breton, the daughter, who is a dedicated midwife. Unfortunately, in her city, midwifery is changing from a personal attachment of mother and midwife to a "big box" one-size-fits-all institution.

One plot line is how Claire will deal with this situation. The other plot line is, of course, how Claire and Béatrice will interact in this confrontation, made even more difficult because Béatrice is ill.

Deneuve was 74 when this film was produced, but she looks much younger. However, it's not her beauty that impressed me, but the fact that she can really act. Frot matches her skills, and their interaction is very powerful.

Midwife has a pretty anemic IMDb rating of 6.7. I'm not sure of why the rating is so low. I loved the movie, and rated it 9.