Fabrice Luchini embodies a mayor confused by the sudden desire to change his kind of his wife, interpreted by Catherine Frot, mother of their three big children.
By Véronique Cauhapé
Married for forty years, parents of three children now leading their lives, Jean (Fabrice Luchini) and Edith (Catherine Frot) could finally sink. Only sir, mayor for six years of Montreuil-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais, decided to stand for a second term. And madam, to finally assume her need, long repressed, to become a man. She announces it to her husband, from the start of the film, during a lunch alone at the restaurant.
It’s been decades that she gives the change, good mother, good wife, it is now time for her to become “himself” and to go to the end of her transition started for a few months. On the other side of the table, the husband spreads her eyes, opens and closes his mouth like a fish, understands nothing, believes in a joke, finally thinks of a new fad of his wife, who will pass him.
We can imagine what such a revelation could provoke in this small provincial town, in sepia colors, with narrow ideas, with conservative ambitions. Jean would lose all his voters there. Therefore, it is decided, once acquired the irrevocable nature of its decision, that Edith will continue to appear as a woman throughout the election campaign. In front of the cameras, she will put on candy pink dress and matching glasses. At the house, however, she will do what she is singing, will wear the costume, the cap and the mustache, will be called Eddy, and will work her pectorals thanks to a home coach. Jean, confused and a disgusted nothing, will make some efforts, and above all a room apart.
On paper, the fourth comedy by Tristan Séguéla (16 or almost, in 2013; catching up, in 2017; Doctor?, in 2019) had something to leave the worst. It is however largely avoided, largely thanks to the incisive dialogues of Guy Laurent and Isabelle Lazard, the interpretation without superfluous manners of the actors and the director’s ability to stop the funniest scenes in time. It is at this price that we avoid slippages and road exits. A happy man sometimes borders on the gravelly but does not give in to it. There is no doubt that what prevails here is the desire to open minds, to lead the most refractory to more tolerance.
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