HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE
**
Director: Martin Provost
Screenplay: Martin Provost and Séverine Werba
Principal cast:
Juliette Binoche
Yolande Moreau
Noémie Lvovsky
Edouard Baer
François Berléand
Marie Zabukovec
Country: France
Classification: M
Runtime: 109 mins.
Australian release date: 26 December 2020.
The trouble with Martin Provost’s How To Be A Good Wife is that it is a bit confused - it can’t make up its mind whether it’s a laugh-out-loud comedy, a satirical dig at life in the 1960s or a social commentary on the evils of patriarchy. In the final analysis, it’s none of those things - at least, not successfully. Even the presence of the great Juliette Binoche and the skill of Yolande Moreau can’t save the shortcomings of Provost and Séverine Werba’s muddled screenplay. The director has had success in the past with more serious fare like The Mid-Wife, Violette and Séraphine (which won seven Césars in 2009, including Best Film and Best Actress for Yolande Moreau), so it’s tempting to surmise that his strengths lie in drama, not comedy, judging by How To Be A Good Wife. The film’s heart is in the right place but there’s not enough blood pumping to make it race.
Set in 1967 at a home economics school in the medieval town of Boersch in the Alsace-Moselle region of France, Madame Paulette Van der Beck (Binoche) has to take over the administration of the school after her husband Robert (Berléand) unexpectedly departs the scene. She and her sister-in-law Gilberte (Moreau), with the aid of the eccentric nun Marie-Thérèse (Lvovsky), have always taught their young female charges “the seven pillars of being a good housewife”, but now she has to look after the finances, too. What she finds when she goes through the books is a shock and necessitates a visit to the local bank manager, where she has yet another surprise. It transpires that he is a man who she was in love with many years earlier but who she thought had been killed in the war, André (Baer). He didn’t marry because he never gave up hope of finding Paulette again and now he wants to rekindle their romance, which turns her staid, traditional way of life upside down. André is not the only thing upending her life, either - social upheaval is changing the entire country and this story is taking place just before the events of May ’68 altered la vie de France forever.
Provost explains that, “At the end of the ’60s, home economics schools - which, for over one hundred years, had trained armies of homemakers, housekeepers and nannies all over France - were living out their final years. It was the end of an era; one wherein there still existed a type of education reserved strictly for girls with the sole objective of confining them to the domestic arena with no prospects other than that of serving men and families… There were so many of these home economics schools that it seems incredible to think not a single one survived May of ’68.” Which is very interesting but you don’t really understand this from watching the film, because How To Be A Good Wife treats its subject matter in such a light-hearted manner. Of course, the domestic audience in France would be aware of the history behind the script but foreign audiences need a bit more background to ‘get’ the bigger picture. One can’t help thinking that this important material about a period of seismic change would have been better served if it had been treated as a drama, rather than in this disorderly fashion.
Screenplay: Martin Provost and Séverine Werba
Principal cast:
Juliette Binoche
Yolande Moreau
Noémie Lvovsky
Edouard Baer
François Berléand
Marie Zabukovec
Country: France
Classification: M
Runtime: 109 mins.
Australian release date: 26 December 2020.
The trouble with Martin Provost’s How To Be A Good Wife is that it is a bit confused - it can’t make up its mind whether it’s a laugh-out-loud comedy, a satirical dig at life in the 1960s or a social commentary on the evils of patriarchy. In the final analysis, it’s none of those things - at least, not successfully. Even the presence of the great Juliette Binoche and the skill of Yolande Moreau can’t save the shortcomings of Provost and Séverine Werba’s muddled screenplay. The director has had success in the past with more serious fare like The Mid-Wife, Violette and Séraphine (which won seven Césars in 2009, including Best Film and Best Actress for Yolande Moreau), so it’s tempting to surmise that his strengths lie in drama, not comedy, judging by How To Be A Good Wife. The film’s heart is in the right place but there’s not enough blood pumping to make it race.
Set in 1967 at a home economics school in the medieval town of Boersch in the Alsace-Moselle region of France, Madame Paulette Van der Beck (Binoche) has to take over the administration of the school after her husband Robert (Berléand) unexpectedly departs the scene. She and her sister-in-law Gilberte (Moreau), with the aid of the eccentric nun Marie-Thérèse (Lvovsky), have always taught their young female charges “the seven pillars of being a good housewife”, but now she has to look after the finances, too. What she finds when she goes through the books is a shock and necessitates a visit to the local bank manager, where she has yet another surprise. It transpires that he is a man who she was in love with many years earlier but who she thought had been killed in the war, André (Baer). He didn’t marry because he never gave up hope of finding Paulette again and now he wants to rekindle their romance, which turns her staid, traditional way of life upside down. André is not the only thing upending her life, either - social upheaval is changing the entire country and this story is taking place just before the events of May ’68 altered la vie de France forever.
Provost explains that, “At the end of the ’60s, home economics schools - which, for over one hundred years, had trained armies of homemakers, housekeepers and nannies all over France - were living out their final years. It was the end of an era; one wherein there still existed a type of education reserved strictly for girls with the sole objective of confining them to the domestic arena with no prospects other than that of serving men and families… There were so many of these home economics schools that it seems incredible to think not a single one survived May of ’68.” Which is very interesting but you don’t really understand this from watching the film, because How To Be A Good Wife treats its subject matter in such a light-hearted manner. Of course, the domestic audience in France would be aware of the history behind the script but foreign audiences need a bit more background to ‘get’ the bigger picture. One can’t help thinking that this important material about a period of seismic change would have been better served if it had been treated as a drama, rather than in this disorderly fashion.