A breezy feminist farce from French director Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool), Potiche is adapted from a 1970s play in which the wife of an umbrella factory owner unexpectedly takes over the business when her husband’s health fails. Catherine Deneuve is light on her feet – and smart as a tack – as the wife, while Gerard Depardieu has fun as her former paramour and current union adversary (he’s a dreamy militant). This is entertaining enough, though it raises more questions than it answers (especially considering it came out shortly before the debate about the place of women in French society that erupted in reaction to the Dominique Strauss-Kahn rape case). Potiche – the title means “trophy wife” – frothily tweaked sexist traditions at a time when stronger satire might have been more fitting.
