Charlotte de Turckheim as a catholic bored rich lady is the heart of this feminist comedy, also starring beautiful Chantal Lauby, a Jewish shrink with enough issues of her own and Chantal Ladesou as Odille, the most unusual "maid" you'll ever meet.
François Berléand is the boring husband of Marie-Agnes de Brossac, they make a hypocritical couple with even more fake friends: my favourite scene is by far when she sees through the chit chat, their racism, envy, how they wish her badly and how they are all the times comparing themselves with them, to the point of feeling better with their little miseries now they see how their couple is collapsing.
TV movies have a characteristic: when they work, they flow. We know when we see charming singleton Sybille that it won't last for long, and if couples that were doomed to come apart finally come back, or sort of, we rejoice without thinking twice, even an unplanned pregnancy is not as trite as it may sound. Charlotte, who did the a very similar character in "Les Aristos", has a knack for laughing healthily at a class she probably was born into. Her daughter Odille and future husband Maximilien are a bit schematic, but that's just a quibble. Watch Odille mistreat her posh clients, dance alone in the end, or argue with her dead husband Philippe is so fun, she is perfect in that "likeable nut" role. No small feat. Julien, his long suffering pro piano player, also has some things to say late in the film, and there are "psychoanalytic" readings to be made of much that happens in the film, but I would rather not intellectualize such a fine entertaining movie.
Enrico Shaoule is a fun "Jewish lover" that may not know Stendal from a relative but has the right instincts, Sybille describes very well all her mum's other affairs: "they were mal dans sa peau" (I find this untranslatable French idiom perfect for many intellos :)).
Watch it, you won't regret it!
