Potiche

Very strong first act with the film hitting all the right notes of pastiche, bourgeois melodrama and comedy. A very refreshing half hour of cinema. The story then developed reasonably well. Nice use of flashbacks. Deneuve gave a good performance; Lucchini and Viard were better. Towards the 2/3 point the script lost the plot and took the wrong direction, leading to a disappointing ending. Ozon has a lot of ideas that work but never seems able to deliver the full package without self-sabotaging.

The pastiche and satire is sugarcoated and superficial rather than sharp, but nevertheless entertaining as a vehicle for yet another Deneuve tour de force.

Stale and boring.

"So soon after Deneuve and Depardieu's sublime work in André Téchiné's Changing Times, Ozon's froth looks especially trivial." - Bill Weber

Ozon aime bien faire tourner les vieilles qui ont la côte (Deneuve, Viard...). Pas sûr que ce soit un bon argument de vente (sauf pour les vieilles qui ont le même âge, désolé). De beaux décors cela dit, Depardieu et un propos pas trop radical, c'est déjà pas mal.

No doubt a below average film that should be laborious to watch that is made into an average film that is quite enjoyable to view due solely to the presence of both Deneuve and Depardieu.

The genre pastiche was initially repulsive, especially the cloying music, but I put my trust in Ozon, and he of course steered it in an unexpected direction. Once I got on its weird wavelength I ended up finding it pretty emotionally absorbing and rewarding. It doesn't wink at the audience, or let the audience in on when it's being sincere and when it's being absurd and ironic, and I appreciate that a lot.

I'm not sure the scriptwriters knew the meaning of subtext. Everything was spelled out, in terms of framing the relationships, the issues, and tracking that throughout the movie. There was some humour in the idiosyncrasy of the some of the characters. Would have liked to have seen more about the conflict with the workers, which is what it initially seemed to be building up to, but the focus was too much on the growth of the main character without sufficiently rooting it in the plotline.

Light comedy from Francois Ozon which plays homage to it's stars Deneuve and Depardieu. Cinematography, sets and clothes are colorful and capture the 70's, but it's all too lightweight and disposable to stay in the memory long after you've seen it. Makes me yearn for Ozon's early quirkier films.

Lovely and at times very funny

Class and family dramedy that relies on the period settings novelty as the jokes are of that unsubtle kind the French seem fond of. Starts OK -like a cross between a Carry On film and Wes Anderson- then gets worse and worse until a really awful ending.

At times fun, at times annoying.

Easy going and entertaining.

A pastiche of '70s melodrama that retains only the more tiring aspects of the genre. Hard to truly dislike: Deneuve and Depardieu are always enjoyable and everything looks pretty, but the plot is paper thin and the jokes are rarely funny.

It's another signpost on Ozon's apprenticeship toward cinema mastery.

The movie is charming and delightful with a very simple story. The acting, story and script fits perfectly. The movie feels 70ish and presents some of the then stereotypes. A good entertaining movie.

I think I missed a lot of the in-jokes and references in this - I didn't live in France in the seventies - and the I found this too close to the melodramatic farces it was satirizing. Still, Deneuve is good.

Ozon writes himself into the post-modern film-history as one of the most daring directors, aesthetically and thematically with this tribute to 70's kitsch. The writing is witty, great performances, Deneuve especially.

Potiche is not a great film -- just a contained satire --, but is charming, elegant in its style -- Ozon uses close-ups as if he were shooting a 1970s feature -- and with some bright comedy.

Feydeau would be proud...

Delightful and hilarious over the top satire that shamelessly presents a handful of stereotypes as its main characters in a beautifully crafted environment.

23 may 2011, beyoglu sinemasi, baris ile & fazla feminist. erkekler hep beceriksiz, aptal. kadinlar ise kendi zincirlerinden kurtulduktan sonra her turlu potansiyeli icinde tasiyan varliklar. bu rahatsiz edici, tek tarafli gorusu sevmedim. kimbilir, belki de sinema dunyasinda surekli tam tersini izleme durumunda kalmis olmamizdan kaynaklanan bir rahatsizlik bu..

being harmless is better then being armless