10 April 2012

Marie (Anne Coesens) is a thirtysomething Frenchwoman married to a buoyantly charming husband, with a child of two, a pleasant lifestyle of fitness centres and park picnics, a non-taxing job flogging sets of encyclopaedias - and one of those dissatisfied yens that are baffling except to women film-makers such as director Virginie Wagon, working again with screenwriter Erick Zonca, for whom she coscripted The Dreamlife of Angels.

Despite her encyclopaedic knowledge, Marie calls on and falls for a burly black Americanin-Paris (Tony Todd) with an ear stud and a self-satisfied manner that tells everyone (but Marie) that he's a no-good womaniser. The thrill of illicit love, exotic partner and softporn sex - cunnilingus this time round - leads to domestic split, bitter recriminations and personal indignity without a single apparent iota of pleasurable compensation.

If it weren't directed by a woman, the film would be harshly judged as exploiting the masochistic strain and need for humiliation said to exist in the female gender. Even though it's directed by a woman, I'd still say this is what it illustrates. It deals with the ageless conundrum, "What do women want?" but leaves the answer as wide open as that other question asked down the ages: "Why can't men see dust?"

Secretary
Cert: cert18

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