This movie raises looks as if it might explore, at least partially, interesting issues around class, nationality and gender relationships in a feel good packaging. It doesn't. Actually, that wouldn't matter as much as it does if it truly was a feel good movie, but it's not quite that either – the old dude / beautiful young woman pairing isn't believable (in this case anyway – other movies like The Girl In The Café, The Girl on the Bridge, Le Divorce manage it, at least partly because Bill Nighy, Daniel Auteuil and Thierry Lhermitte can do sexy. I can't imagine anyone wanting to shag Jean Louis) . Jean Louis comes across as pleasant and well meaning but creepy. When he gets the horn after perving on the maid in the bathroom and starts kissing his wife's neck instead, the audience seems to collectively shudder. We are encouraged to see him as finding his freedom and his true identity away from his stultifying bourgeois life and constrictive family – but, deliberately or not, his wife is in some ways a more sympathetic character than he is, and doesn't seem to deserve what she gets. It's not just that he is physically unattractive, he seems morally problematic as well - it looks as if he's helping the Spanish maids more out of a desire to get in Maria's pants at least as much as a genuine compassion for their plight. The power relationship is hinted at, but explicit: he has the money and the status.
And that's just it. Chemistry has to be believable. A feel good ending has to feel good. This one doesn't quite make it
And that's just it. Chemistry has to be believable. A feel good ending has to feel good. This one doesn't quite make it