The President’s Wife is a comedy with serious political undertones about Bernadette Chirac, a French politician and the wife of former French president Jacques Chirac. Source: Australian Catholics.
The opening of the film, also known as Bernadette, is something of a delight to the eye and ear – a mixed choir dressed in robes chants with polyphony. We learn initial information about who Bernadette was, such as her family lineage, her political career, the place of women in French politics in the 20th century, her marriage to the future president, and his infidelities.
Who better to portray Bernadette Chirac than the doyenne of French actresses, Catherine Deneuve. With a brilliant career, including headlining film credits for 60 years, Bernadette was released as Deneuve turned 80.
She gives a commanding performance as Bernadette even though so often she is at the command, the phone beck and call of her ambitious husband.
Bernadette has had something of a local political career, while Jacques (Michel Vuillermoz)is a political male chauvinist who becomes increasingly alarmed at her upfront presence in his campaigns and in her social work, as she establishes a hospital, makes television appearances and attracts music and sports stars eager to support her charities.
The portrait of Jacques Chirac in this film is exceedingly one-dimensional, preoccupied with power and upset at his wife’s increasing public presence. He is something of the moving equivalent of newspaper cartoons.
One of the interesting characters, but also one-dimensional, is the Chiracs’ daughter, Claude. She is rather humourless, and single-mindedly committed to her father’s political career.
The film is brief with a timeline that makes jumps of several years from 1995 to the mid-2000s.
The President’s Wife is entertaining in its way but comparatively slight. Whether an audience outside France would be eager to see the film is a question.
Review by Fr Peter Malone MSC, Jesuit Media
The President’s Wife: Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Denis Podalydes, Michel Vuillermoz, Sarah Giraudeau, Laurent Stocker, Maud Wyler. Directed by Lea Domenach. 93 minutes, colour.
FULL REVIEW
The President’s Wife/Bernadette (Jesuit Media via Australian Catholics)
