‘Two Women’ Grapples With Romance and Fidelity in Post-#MeToo Era

Chloé Robichaud’s “Two Women” is an odd duck of a movie, but not so odd that a casual viewer won’t find it appealing, intermittently hilarious and, on the whole, worth seeing. Learning that the picture is a remake of a Québécois sex farce, Claude Fournier’s “Two Women in Gold” (1970), puts Ms. Robichaud’s picture into focus or, at least, explains its sometimes anachronistic tendencies. This is a movie with baggage.But, first, the good stuff. Give a hand to casting directors, Karel Quinn and Lucie Llopis. “Two Women” is filled with superlative talents who are able to plumb comedy and drama with an equal degree of adroitness. That they’re often required to bare all or engage in salacious tomfoolery only points to their gumption. Even the most transitory of bit players is worth heralding. Isabelle Brouillette, for one, can’t be on screen for more than a minute or so, but she brings along her A-game to memorable effect.Mss. Quinn and Llopsis should be congratulated on knowing when to place the right kind of actor for the right kind of beauty or, since it is an important plot point, the right kind of ugly. The two leads, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman and Laurence Leboeuf, are stunning; their co-leads, Mani Soleymanlou and Félix Moati, are, respectively, lumpish and squirrelly. A statuesque Juliette Gariépy —you may remember her from Pascal Plante’s harrowing “Red Rooms” (2023) — is on hand as a scarily platonic ideal of feminine beauty.It’s winter in Montreal. The setting is an unglamorous block of middle-income housing. Violette (Ms. Leboeuf) is a new mom on maternity leave; her husband, Benoit (Mr. Moati), a salesman who spends a lot of time on the road. The next-door neighbors are an unemployed translator Florence (Ms. Gonthier-Hyndman), her tech-bro partner David (Mr. Soleymanlou), and his tweenage son from a previous coupling, Max (Mateo Laurent Menbreño Daigle). The two women bond over shared disappointments, as well as a mutual curiosity about who it might be in the apartment complex that’s having sex at an unconscionable volume. Our heroines aren’t getting lucky with their men, that’s for sure. David claims indifference based on Florence’s regimen of anti-depressants; Benoit is busy having an affair with a co-worker, Eli (Ms. Gariépy). Lonely and frustrated, Florence and Violette make an executive decision to quell their desires by engaging in a series of flings that are as genial and sexy as they are unlikely and absurd. Men, especially tradesmen, prove eminently amenable to on-the-sly, no-questions-asked hook-ups. A viewer coming in late could be forgiven for mistaking portions of “Two Women” as soft-core entertainment from decades past.Laurence Lebouef and Karine Gonthier-Hyndman in ‘Two Women.’ Joint VentureCatherine Léger adapted the screenplay from her play of the same name, being a theatrical spin-off of the Fournier film. Ms. Léger avers that the original “Two Women in Gold” “portrayed female sexuality in comedy and lightheartedness.” In the accompanying press materials, Mr. Robichaud points up the cultural changes that have taken place over the past half-century. Florence and Violette make the most of their randy ways during the run of “Two Women,” and, as such, exhibit their empowerment. Still, the picture is kind of a conservative endeavor in that its trades in tried-and-true archetypes.This is what makes the picture skewed. Post-#MeToo dynamics are brought to bear on a pre-AIDS nostalgia resulting in a schema that can’t help but be inherently at odds with itself. Perhaps this is why some reviewers have drubbed the film as “cringy,” “dated,” “joyless,” and “unfocused.” All of which seems more indicative of current critical mores than a realistic appraisal of a flawed, funny and, in the end, compassionate motion picture. Life is short and pleasure is rare — enjoy the latter within reason and you’ll find yourself simpatico with the aims of “Two Women.”

‘Two Women’ Grapples With Romance and Fidelity in Post-#MeToo Era

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