Available on DVD: “Potiche”

Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu in Potiche

At the beginning of Potiche, a sweetly artificial confection made very tasty by its cast, Catherine Deneuve is jogging through the woods, communing with forest animals, looking like a million francs, while the opening titles do their split-screen thing and composer Philippe Rombi treats the prologue like a peppy Trois’ Company artifact of 1977, not simply a film set in 1977.

Potiche is French for “trophy wife.” It comes from a 1980 stage farce (here set back three years) from the team of Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Gredy, who gave the world the comedies translated into English as Cactus Flower and Forty Carats. The movie, adapted and directed by Francois Ozon, is one of those diversions wherein the actors must compete with the wallpaper in every interior scene. But when you have Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu and (lesser known in America) Fabrice Luchini on-screen, the humans win every time.

Potiche is very Touch of Class and House Calls in its comic vibe and trappings, and if you’re old enough to remember those Glenda Jackson rom-coms, you’ll probably respond favorably to Potiche.

The wife of a philandering umbrella factory manager, Deneuve’s pampered character, Suzanne Pujol, is put to the test when a strike lays her husband low, and she takes over the business along with her right-wing daughter and left-wing son. The local socialist mayor urges progressive reforms; he also urges a rekindling of a long-ago romantic spark. Depardieu plays the politician; Luchini schemes magnificently as the husband, whose stance toward his workers is underlined by such lines as: “To hell with the workers!”

Ozon runs into some trouble rewriting and expanding the play’s original ending. (He and Deneuve worked together on 8 Women, also based on a play.) Watching Potiche in light of what’s been happening in Wisconsin, among other places, it’s amusing to contemplate just how quickly Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s head would explode watching any film, even a frothy French period piece, wherein the workers demand five weeks off as well as annual year-end bonuses.

Politics aside, even with its third-act wobble, the film moves with assurance and crisp pacing, and the actors are a pleasure to watch. Luchini proves a master technician, timing each bit of business (including a spit-take!) just so.

The intense stylization of Potiche might’ve become difficult to take with an aggressively comic actress at its center. Deneuve is not that sort. As with Depardieu, the leading lady has a light-fingered but sincere approach that takes the edge off the artifice. Even with that hideous eye-shadow, Karin Viard (looking disconcertingly like Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie) is enjoyable as the boss’s dishy but insecure secretary who stands up for herself, at long last.

“It’s the sign of the times, Mom,” says Suzanne’s son, played by Jeremie Renier. “Women everywhere are taking power.” The movie, thankfully, has a casual way with such thesis lines.

The R rating for Potiche is quite ridiculously punitive, given its mild sexual content, by the way. The Motion Picture Association of America strikes again.