THE STORY – In this playful remake of Claude Fournier’s 1970 comedy “Two Women in Gold,” Violette is having a difficult maternity leave and Florence is dealing with depression. Despite their careers and families, they feel like failures. Florence’s first infidelity is a revelation. When having fun is far down the list of priorities, sleeping with a delivery guy could be revolutionary.
THE CAST – Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Laurence Leboeuf, Félix Moati, Mani Soleymanlou, Sophie Nelisse & Juliette Gariépy
THE TEAM – Chloé Robichaud (Director) & Catherine Léger (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 100 Minutes
After working within the Quebecoise film industry for more than a decade with accessible features such as 2013’s “Sarah Prefers to Run” and 2023’s “Days of Happiness,” it was inevitable for Chloé Robichaud to screen her latest project in the snowy streets of Park City. In her latest feature, “Two Women,” Robichaud strays away from the pressures of athleticism and the competitiveness of the arts with a low-key feminist comedy set in a Montreal suburb. For the first time in her feature career, Robichaud passed on the writing duties of her film to Canadian scribe Catherine Léger. Unlike the rest of her oeuvre, Léger reconfigures Robichaud’s signature dramatic intensity with a slight remake of a Quebecoise cult classic.
Despite middling critical reception at the time of its release, “Two Women in Gold” was a hit amongst its francophone demographic. More than fifty years since the inaugural release of Claude Fournier’s insatiable sex-comedy, Léger re-evaluates and modernizes the source material with a fresh interpretation. Her adaptation follows two mothers as they begin to explore their sexuality beyond the masculine veil of monogamy. On paper, the formulaic premise more or less reiterates familiar beats from other pre-existing works about sexual liberation. In the case of “Two Women,” Robichaud’s coverage-dependent methodology lingers within awkward conversations shared between neighbors Florence and Violette.
The oppressive exterior of their apartments subliminally emphasizes their boredom, utilizing symmetry to cage the characters within their shared patriarchal prisons. Finding solace in their suburban malaise, Robichaud intimately intersects the women’s views with the cold and dissonant responses from their male partners. Coinciding with the harshness of a Canadian winter, the first part of Robichaud’s film is surrounded by snow and ice. As the seasons shift, the characters begin to find warmth in their secretive pleasures. By utilizing real Canadian weather as a visual guide for narrative progression, the picturesque suburban landscapes begin to reflect upon the character’s positive pursuit for change.
Unlike Léger’s previous screenwriting encounter with Moni Chokri and her infamous Sundance-player “Babysitter,” “Two Women” exchanges maximalist absurdism for dialogue-dependent comedy. The contemporary element of Robichaud’s adaptation inevitably settles for trendy subject matter that warrants its mention of the #MeToo movement, social media, and the evolution of relationship labels. The situational comedy involving these topics is expanded and reworked, demonstrating different thematic objectives within their narrative implementation. In a prolonged scene involving a Facebook post, Robichaud playfully uses the buzzword constituents to interrogate male fragility. The comedy stems purely from the push-and-pull dynamics at the helm of the situational drama. “Two Women” isn’t laugh-out-loud funny by any means, but at least it sustains itself with a complimentary comic edge that consistently offers social insight.
Oddly enough, while Léger’s framework admirably enforces dialogue on contemporary subject matter, the interiority of the shelled characters lacks definition. Not much is learned about the lives and experiences of Florence and Violette before they experiment with their sexuality together. Outside of a brief mention of Florence’s occupation, “Two Women’s” didactic chronology regrettably spends more time with its male co-stars instead of spotlighting and further humanizing the protagonists’ pasts. Thankfully, both Robichaud and Léger still share empathy for their leading ladies, as their ideological empowerment alleviates their rambunctious friendship from the pressures of the patriarchy.
There’s an undeniable sense of hope by the conclusion of Robichaud’s remake. Instead of neatly tying up loose ends, the finale leaves the characters’ future ambiguous. Learning anything more about the ramifications of the character’s sexual indulgence is futile. It defeats the point of the film. Instead of adhering to the same perpetual myth of the perfect twenty-first-century couple, Robichaud unmasks the desires of suburban housewives with confidence. Whereas the lack of character interiority regresses the thematic conclusions at the crux of the remake, “Two Women” successfully revamps an old Quebecoise classic with a formidable interpretation.
