MadamThey say that you miss 100% of the shots you never take; this is true for everything from romance to comedic timing. Madame is described as a romantic comedy about an affluent family--the Fredericks--living in Paris, about to host a dinner party for some of their other rich coterie. The superstitious Anne Frederick (Toni Colette) discovers that the surprise arrival of her stepson, Steven (Tom Hughes), has put her guest list at the ominous number of thirteen. On a whim, she presses her live-in maid, Maria (Rossy de Palma), into posing as an elite and mysterious member of the upper crust. But trouble springs when one guest, David Morgan (Michael Smiley), falls for Maria, believing that she is actual royalty, leaving everyone in the know struggling to keep up the farce.
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Written and directed by Amanda Sthers, Madame is a movie that seems to be as confused about what it is supposed to be as much as poor Maria. On one hand, it periodically wears its cinematic inspiration on its sleeve. It tries at being a condemnation of class inequity, similar to Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. Maria--who is the only truly sympathetic character, even if she is written to be a bit dimmer than she should be--is used and emotionally abused by Anne, who is as much of a shrill shrew as you could imagine being a frustrated, aging trophy wife to her significantly older (but importantly wealthy) husband, Bob (Harvey Keitel). (A knowing nod to Rossy de Palma's history working with Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar emerges during one of many instances of Anne berating Maria.) Anne, Bob, and their family and friends are woefully detached from reality, so it may very well be that Anne truly fails to see how overwhelmingly cruel and hurtful she is to Maria with her offhand comments, including criticizing her dress and manner of speech. The Fredericks keep Maria in this tiny loft room in their palatial Paris home. Their priorities are so superficial as to be insulting, like Bob's dilemma about selling his Caravaggio painting of The Last Supper, which may or may not be authentic. Wow...that's thrilling stuff. Or even the basic premise of Madame is one that is so absurd that it could only work in a screwball comedy, like the hysterical Oscar. But despite this, Madame is not a screwball comedy, and that is perhaps its greatest failing. As a matter of fact, there is precious little that is actually funny about this movie, so even calling it a "comedy" is too generous. The novelty of snickering at the awkward maid in a fancy dress while the rich folk gossip about her wears off quickly, and begins to feel suspiciously similar to something Anne tells Maria out of spite after she starts stealing the show at the party--that she doesn't know whether people are laughing with her or at her.
Maria remains so nervous, so servile from start to finish that it becomes almost unbearable. Any other movie like this--and there are many, because the plot of Madame is far from original--would build to Maria either winning over David despite her humble occupation and/or giving Anne her comeuppance; and even if this might be cliche, it would at least be consistent with the constant indications that this is where the story is going. One of the too few moments of competent foreshadowing comes early in Madame, when Maria comments to David at the party that "everyone loves happy endings", referring specifically to movies that these jaded bourgeoisie turn their nose up at. But at the crucial moment, the climax of the movie, what happens? Nothing...at least nothing that pays off that foreshadowing. What a crime! In fact, Madame is so consistently guilty of failing to pay off any humorous set up by leaving almost every single potential joke sitting on the proverbial table that you have to wonder whether Sthers was trying to make some kind of "anti-comedy" or something; one hopes at least. (My favorite example is when Maria is in an elevator at a nice hotel where she meets with David for their romantic trysts. Maria shares it with a maid holding some sheets, smiles, and does nothing. This is a golden opportunity for Maria to commiserate in some way with the maid's situation--like straightening out some wrinkles or something--but Madame is comfortable letting this obvious gem just slip through its fingers. Unforgivable.) There are precious few moments where any meaningful insight into Maria is offered, short of her religious upbringing and her daughter whom she video chats with while she is ice skating. Instead, we get copious scenes with Anne, Steven, and the other rich and sleazy that are not only shallow melodrama, but worse, boring. Apparently, Bob is trying to seduce his pretty young French instructor on the sly, and the audience is forced to endure scene after scene of him bumbling in French while ordering bread with her and other such nonsense. Anne, meanwhile, has an affair with Antoine Bernard (Stanislas Merhar), the guy buying her husband's Caravaggio, and gets discarded after he's bored with her. Oh, and Steven is trying to come up with a new book idea while upholding nearly every lame trope of an wunderkind elite writer--always a drink in his hand, and flipping back his wild bangs out from his eyes while mumbling incoherently. It's all so...dull. But what's outright offensive about this parade of tired cliches is that Madame doesn't even bother to subvert them, and actually--to be honest--most of the story is really about these rich fools instead of Maria. This has the effect--intended or otherwise--of once again relegating the sympathetic poor immigrant (from Spain) to being ancillary to the uninspired ennui of the one percenters. As if to underscore the point, despite Maria clearly being the most important character, Toni Colette and Harvey Keitel get top billing over Rossy de Palma in the opening credits. (That said, Toni Colette gives 110% here and is delightfully convincing as the shrewishly domineering control freak, Anne.) Ultimately, this makes Madame less condemning than it appears to set out to be and feels more like it was looking down on those poor, unfortunate, and simple people like Maria, doing more patronizing than empathizing; and who wants to watch that unless you happen to be one of those vapid elitist jerks like the Fredericks?
Recommended for: I'm not sure...people who like subpar romcoms about mistaken identity that have been done much better before and many times over? Despite some good performances by most of the lead actors and filled with lavish set design, Madame is a tired and even abrasively elitist slog that feels like it was written by someone who is trying to empathize with someone like Maria...but can't, leaving the movie as little more than an hour and a half of missed opportunities for humor and pathos.
Maria remains so nervous, so servile from start to finish that it becomes almost unbearable. Any other movie like this--and there are many, because the plot of Madame is far from original--would build to Maria either winning over David despite her humble occupation and/or giving Anne her comeuppance; and even if this might be cliche, it would at least be consistent with the constant indications that this is where the story is going. One of the too few moments of competent foreshadowing comes early in Madame, when Maria comments to David at the party that "everyone loves happy endings", referring specifically to movies that these jaded bourgeoisie turn their nose up at. But at the crucial moment, the climax of the movie, what happens? Nothing...at least nothing that pays off that foreshadowing. What a crime! In fact, Madame is so consistently guilty of failing to pay off any humorous set up by leaving almost every single potential joke sitting on the proverbial table that you have to wonder whether Sthers was trying to make some kind of "anti-comedy" or something; one hopes at least. (My favorite example is when Maria is in an elevator at a nice hotel where she meets with David for their romantic trysts. Maria shares it with a maid holding some sheets, smiles, and does nothing. This is a golden opportunity for Maria to commiserate in some way with the maid's situation--like straightening out some wrinkles or something--but Madame is comfortable letting this obvious gem just slip through its fingers. Unforgivable.) There are precious few moments where any meaningful insight into Maria is offered, short of her religious upbringing and her daughter whom she video chats with while she is ice skating. Instead, we get copious scenes with Anne, Steven, and the other rich and sleazy that are not only shallow melodrama, but worse, boring. Apparently, Bob is trying to seduce his pretty young French instructor on the sly, and the audience is forced to endure scene after scene of him bumbling in French while ordering bread with her and other such nonsense. Anne, meanwhile, has an affair with Antoine Bernard (Stanislas Merhar), the guy buying her husband's Caravaggio, and gets discarded after he's bored with her. Oh, and Steven is trying to come up with a new book idea while upholding nearly every lame trope of an wunderkind elite writer--always a drink in his hand, and flipping back his wild bangs out from his eyes while mumbling incoherently. It's all so...dull. But what's outright offensive about this parade of tired cliches is that Madame doesn't even bother to subvert them, and actually--to be honest--most of the story is really about these rich fools instead of Maria. This has the effect--intended or otherwise--of once again relegating the sympathetic poor immigrant (from Spain) to being ancillary to the uninspired ennui of the one percenters. As if to underscore the point, despite Maria clearly being the most important character, Toni Colette and Harvey Keitel get top billing over Rossy de Palma in the opening credits. (That said, Toni Colette gives 110% here and is delightfully convincing as the shrewishly domineering control freak, Anne.) Ultimately, this makes Madame less condemning than it appears to set out to be and feels more like it was looking down on those poor, unfortunate, and simple people like Maria, doing more patronizing than empathizing; and who wants to watch that unless you happen to be one of those vapid elitist jerks like the Fredericks?
Recommended for: I'm not sure...people who like subpar romcoms about mistaken identity that have been done much better before and many times over? Despite some good performances by most of the lead actors and filled with lavish set design, Madame is a tired and even abrasively elitist slog that feels like it was written by someone who is trying to empathize with someone like Maria...but can't, leaving the movie as little more than an hour and a half of missed opportunities for humor and pathos.