Maintaining a household and stoically submitting to conjugal duty are the skills Paulette Van Der Beck (Juliette Binoche) teaches with fervor in her homemakers institute. Her certainties are shaken when she finds herself widowed and ruined. Is she rattled by the return of her first love or the wind of freedom in May ’68? What if the good wife finally became a free woman?
“Binoche is superbly entertaining as she first trills and shrills on the ways of proper womanhood, and then starts to relish the taste of new freedoms.” —Devika Girish, The New York Times
“Martin Provost’s comedy of women’s liberation is a warmhearted look at social turbulence.” —The Spool
“Binoche is irresistible. A wonderful, very well-made, good-humoured portrayal of the road travelled over the past fifty or so years towards female emancipation, and of the fact that individual freedom is always essential to ‘finding one’s place in the world.’” —Cineuropa
“Colourful, happy, romantic and surprisingly modern, Provost's film skillfully explores all the social upheavals of the time, touching on the birth of feminism, the acceptance of certain customs and above all, the essential awareness that has emancipated women.” —Elle
Alliance Francaise French Film Festival 2020
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