The Housekeeper

Rating:
Summary: Dust Off Your Heart and Enjoy!
Review: I am constantly amazed at how French filmmakers are able to capture the essence of relationships within simple story lines. "The Housekeeper" is just one of those films.

Jean-Pierre Bacri plays a middle aged man, living in Paris, who is recently alone. His apartment becomes dirty and his solution although quite innocent becomes very complex. Bacri hires a youthful housekeeper, played brilliantly by Emilie Dequenne, and the story begins. At first the two lost souls appear to be from two different worlds, one childlike and innocent against the other so very harsh and bitter. As life progresses the two characters interconnect in a deep way that on the surface appears simply to be one of those silly French affairs of the heart. The simplicity of this film is also its brilliance.

Bacri allows his audience to see what a man feels during middle age; he conveys so much more than just a mid-life crisis. Through this actor's eyes we are able to find illusion, arrogance, and mindless sex turn into a life changing moment where the man left on the beach in the end is more than a simple shallow point. Against Bacri, Dequenne portrays her character with such naïve innocence the audience wants to reach in and protect her. In the end her youth protects itself with renewal and endless hope.

"The Housekeeper" is a French masterpiece more than worthy of your time. It presents the commonality and the distances between the ages as well as between men and women. It is certainly not a romantic comedy filled with American fluff but more a beautiful human story filled with nuances and depth that gives your mind a chance to breathe. So leave the dusting and vacuuming for a few hours and delve into this extraordinary film in order to find a new sense of energy.




Rating:
Summary: Happenstances and the Intrigue of Chance
Review: THE HOUSEKEEPER is a quiet French film that explores how people in emotionally vulnerable states make choices without considering consequences. Middle-aged, lonely, bored Jacques (Jean Pierre Bacri in a beautifully understated performance) is separated from his lover/wife, lives in a flat in Paris whose cluttered mess represents the state of his mind. By chance, he sees an ad for a Housekeeper, answers it, hires a young girl (Laura, portrayed by Emilie Dequenne) who has just been asked to leave her boyfriend's flat. Jacques adjusts to the Monday cleaner, increases her work days, and finally gives in to Laura's request to move in because she has no place to live. Jacques moves slowly and not without the advice of his friends who are equally adrift in the world of broken relationships. So by chance two opposites are brought together, becoming gradually involved as lovers, go away for a vacation for two weeks (a seaside resort) where Laura feels safe and free for the first time, and with that freedom she finds a new beau. Jacques and Laura discuss the laison and in the ensuing last days at the beach resort and find other chance happenings altering their lives.

Filmed with grace and honesty by Director Claude Berri, THE HOUSEKEEPER simply lets us watch the course of events in the lives of two needy people and how they play out. No preaching here, no major message - just a slice of life in contemporary Paris that is all the more touching for its quietly evolving intrigue of chance.

Rating:
Summary: Happenstances and the Intrigue of Chance
Review: THE HOUSEKEEPER is a quiet French film that explores how people in emotionally vulnerable states make choices without considering consequences. Middle-aged, lonely, bored Jacques (Jean Pierre Bacri in a beautifully understated performance) is separated from his lover/wife, lives in a flat in Paris whose cluttered mess represents the state of his mind. By chance, he sees an ad for a Housekeeper, answers it, hires a young girl (Laura, portrayed by Emilie Dequenne) who has just been asked to leave her boyfriend's flat. Jacques adjusts to the Monday cleaner, increases her work days, and finally gives in to Laura's request to move in because she has no place to live. Jacques moves slowly and not without the advice of his friends who are equally adrift in the world of broken relationships. So by chance two opposites are brought together, becoming gradually involved as lovers, go away for a vacation for two weeks (a seaside resort) where Laura feels safe and free for the first time, and with that freedom she finds a new beau. Jacques and Laura discuss the laison and in the ensuing last days at the beach resort and find other chance happenings altering their lives.

Filmed with grace and honesty by Director Claude Berri, THE HOUSEKEEPER simply lets us watch the course of events in the lives of two needy people and how they play out. No preaching here, no major message - just a slice of life in contemporary Paris that is all the more touching for its quietly evolving intrigue of chance.

Rating:
Summary: Finding "love" in the strangest places.
Review: THE HOUSEKEEPER is described as a "romantic comedy" but both of these terms are in fact loosely connected to this film; there is little comedy and the romance is no run-of-the-mill variety. Nevertheless, this film has many redemptive qualities and is well worth watching.

After his wife leaves him middle-aged Jacques finds himself leading a solitary life in his dirty Parisian apartment. Responding to an ad for a housekeeper posted in the neighborhood bakery Jacques meets a much younger Laura who is most eager to scrub his bathtub despite having no experience in this line of work before. Slowly these two individuals become acquainted with each other and take things to the next level.

What makes this film interesting is that Jacques and Laura's new relationship lacks the clichéd factors such as of love at first sight and an enduring love relationship. In fact, Laura has a tendency to be emotionally dependent and Jacques appears to be just along for the ride. It's often a wonder why Jacques lets Laura get away with the things she does. Furthermore, I felt the ending was interesting and certainly unexpected.

All in all, I enjoyed THE HOUSEKEEPER for the aspects that it wasn't: a formulaic romantic comedy with its heart in the wrong place.

Rating:
Summary: Finding "love" in the strangest places.
Review: THE HOUSEKEEPER is described as a "romantic comedy" but both of these terms are in fact loosely connected to this film; there is little comedy and the romance is no run-of-the-mill variety. Nevertheless, this film has many redemptive qualities and is well worth watching.

After his wife leaves him middle-aged Jacques finds himself leading a solitary life in his dirty Parisian apartment. Responding to an ad for a housekeeper posted in the neighborhood bakery Jacques meets a much younger Laura who is most eager to scrub his bathtub despite having no experience in this line of work before. Slowly these two individuals become acquainted with each other and take things to the next level.

What makes this film interesting is that Jacques and Laura's new relationship lacks the clichéd factors such as of love at first sight and an enduring love relationship. In fact, Laura has a tendency to be emotionally dependent and Jacques appears to be just along for the ride. It's often a wonder why Jacques lets Laura get away with the things she does. Furthermore, I felt the ending was interesting and certainly unexpected.

All in all, I enjoyed THE HOUSEKEEPER for the aspects that it wasn't: a formulaic romantic comedy with its heart in the wrong place.

Rating:
Summary: Get It While You Can
Review: The world of Claude Berri's film "The Housekeeper" (La Femme de Ménage) is a melancholy, acidic, ultra self- reflective one. It is also a romantic and comedic world that harkens back to "The Apartment" and in particular the much maligned and neglected "Two for the Seesaw"(Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine): both from the early 1960's. Despite the difference of forty odd years between them, all three of these films share a common view of the world and that is: take what you can get, latch on to it when and if you get it and if it leaves, bid it a fond, though regretful farewell.
Jacques (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a sound recording engineer (who wears ear plugs to block out the sounds of the night), still reeling from a recent divorce and Laura (Emilie Dequenne), a very young (20) woman who has come into Jacques's world, not only to clean his apartment but also to bring sex and love back into his life.
What is particularly refreshing about this film is that both Laura and Jacques are very realistic in regards to what they want from each other and fully comprehend the shortcomings and limitations of these desires. In other words they take full responsibility for their actions and that, in our current world of personal as well as national spin, is a welcome novelty.
Berri has been very astute in his choice of music also. The soundtrack is filled with middle period jazz that sounds like the 1950's and 1960's music of Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan and adds a sonic equivalent of the stalwart romantic notions of the film itself.
"The Housekeeper" ends as it begins: with a wide open and vulnerable heart and a deep concern for it's characters that looks very much like loss but on closer inspection and introspection is really a formal, respectful accommodation for the foibles of what makes us all human.

Rating:
Summary: Get It While You Can
Review: The world of Claude Berri's film "The Housekeeper" (La Femme de Ménage) is a melancholy, acidic, ultra self- reflective one. It is also a romantic and comedic world that harkens back to "The Apartment" and in particular the much maligned and neglected "Two for the Seesaw"(Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine): both from the early 1960's. Despite the difference of forty odd years between them, all three of these films share a common view of the world and that is: take what you can get, latch on to it when and if you get it and if it leaves, bid it a fond, though regretful farewell.
Jacques (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a sound recording engineer (who wears ear plugs to block out the sounds of the night), still reeling from a recent divorce and Laura (Emilie Dequenne), a very young (20) woman who has come into Jacques's world, not only to clean his apartment but also to bring sex and love back into his life.
What is particularly refreshing about this film is that both Laura and Jacques are very realistic in regards to what they want from each other and fully comprehend the shortcomings and limitations of these desires. In other words they take full responsibility for their actions and that, in our current world of personal as well as national spin, is a welcome novelty.
Berri has been very astute in his choice of music also. The soundtrack is filled with middle period jazz that sounds like the 1950's and 1960's music of Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan and adds a sonic equivalent of the stalwart romantic notions of the film itself.
"The Housekeeper" ends as it begins: with a wide open and vulnerable heart and a deep concern for it's characters that looks very much like loss but on closer inspection and introspection is really a formal, respectful accommodation for the foibles of what makes us all human.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Cleaning's Guide To A Man's Heart
Review: You have to hand it to the French.They understand the psychology of relationships very well, if sometimes they delve too much into its analysis: The ups and downs, pains and joys, loneliness and longing,passion and distance, are all so well depicted in their films,of course with a dose of sensuality and a natural eroticism that is never gratitious.
Jean De Florette's Claude Berri directs an excellent Jean-Pierre Bacri,and a refreshingly sexy Emilie Duquenne in yet another tale about human relationships and analyzes it with enough subtely as not to make it too overbearing.
A lonely middle aged Bacri,freshly out of a relationship, hires a part time housekeeper who as his luck has it,is barely twenty years old and with an air of innocence and sexiness,a mixture enough to make any red blooded male take notice.And sure enough, Bacri who is experiencing a dull and empty existence takes notice.
Well,his spell of good luck does not end there, for as it happens,his young employee leaves her boyfriend,and as a result has no place to stay.After a slight hestitation, he agrees to her request to let her stay with him for a 'couple of days' until she finds an alternative accomodation, and other housekeeping jobs, which he tries helping her to find,(and ever the gentlemen even offers to give her his bed and sleeps on the couch).
Well, good fortune has something else in store for Bacri,for it is only a matter of time (indeed a very brief time) before Duquenne initiates sex, an offer he gladly accepts.Who said,as the old worn out cliche goes,that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach only? some good housework will not go amiss to the discerning lonely gentleman, provided of course the woman looks like Emilie Duquenne.
Anyway, he is still bothered confused and annoyed by his ex's constant harrasement,wanting him back,so he decides to go for a couple of weeks to the country to recharge his batteries.Either it is love or fear of abandonment or more likely both,Duquenne pleads with him to take her along,(as his lover and companion) an offer again he finds very hard to resist..(who would???)
Leading a quite and pleasent time by the seaside,their relationship has always from the start being ambigious, confused between a sexual companionship for two lonely people, and a long term possibilty.
Well, towards the end, Duquenne, either because she is quite liberal in her 'amours' or liberated through her brief relationship with Bacri,finds a much younger suitor, and with so much ease tells her middle aged lover that she likes and wants them both,an offer this time, he finds very hard to accept!!
The film ends with Bacri sitting between Duquenne and the middle aged mother of her new lover.
Powerful ending but leaves a lot to be desired at the same time.As is the tradition of many French films, we do not see a proper conculsion to the story, but then probably we do not need to, because at the end it is not about a happy or sad ending, but simply about the complexity of relationships, and of human condition, and that does not always have a clear and rational justification or ending.
Will Bacri move on and leave his lover to her new adventure, or will she think of lodging and security and moves back with him?? these possibilities are left by Berri for the viewers to conclude, as we leave the film with a sense of sympathy for both, and this I guess is much more vital.
So Housekeeper, is a warm, bittersweet and gentle film that will not dazzle you with any special effects or grandiose themes, rather it will engage you thoroughly with the simplest of plots ,about love,loneliness and what does one want and expect from a relationship,given the many variables and differences,and the fights and compromises one has to go through.Psychology on celluloid of the finest kind 'a la Francaise'