Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Chloé Robichaud
Starring: Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Laurence Leboeuf, Mani Soleymanlou, Félix Moati, Sophie Nélisse, Juliette Gariépy, Isabelle Brouillette
Once again we refer to the home spun heterophobic wisdom of Female Trouble's acid tossing materter Ida with her enduring aphorism, "the world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life." And it isn't just the usual vile bigotry which recalls Edith Massey's sing-song gay philosophy, the opening sequence of Chloé Robichaud (director) and Catherine Léger's (screenplay) Two Women (itself a remake of the apparently bawdier 1970 Two Women in Gold) is framed within the resplendent iconography of melodrama with all its attendant camp: swelling orchestral score (gorgeous and by Philippe Brault), calligraphic credits, a soft colour palette. The visual language is strikingly instructive, too, depicting our two soon to be wayward protagonists Florence (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) and Violette (Laurence Leboeuf - un nom brillant) in duplicate constructions: they stare from their respective appartements into the powdery snowfall, separate but united in their forlorn dissatisfaction. The camera pans to the parallel lines of electrical transmission cords, which are tight and straight and stretch on forever.
There's nothing wrong with being straight per se (it is 2026, after all), but the abiding problem with heteronormativity (apart from the awful music) is that it often presumes and duly imposes archaic gender roles upon its heedless participants. The opening line of this caustic home drama is "I feel bad leaving you with the baby," spoken to pretty young Violette by her husband before he leaves for a business trip; the camera positioning the spiritually estranged couple in sperate rooms. It turns out that, inevitably, he's rendezvousing with someone else on these trips, an eyebrow-free alt type who is so Julia (the queer coding of this film is surely not accidental) and played deftly by Juliette Gariépy with the script refreshingly affording her a dynamism which transcends the "other woman" archetype. Expressive and clever use of domestic space characterises Two Women's storytelling; we crosscut to the apartment of the older David and Florence, who are in a less ostensibly disingenuous relationship, but one that is nonetheless desultory. He's on the old citalopram (erodes the libido: avoid), and she's being kept awake by someone else's sex noises, which could be bird cries or even an egregore manifested by Florence's own sexual dissatisfaction.
A primary principle of patriarchal culture is the canard that women should not/ do not enjoy sex: the subject/verb/past participle passive construction of "woman is fucked," with men always in charge of the active role. The toxic slop of contemporary pornography attests to this formation, with the mode predominantly representing situations where female participants are enjoyed rather than engaged with through increasingly extreme practices which suit the jaded, naïve perceptions of its unimaginative male audience and their dunce power fantasies. Further weighting the cultural dice, within androcentric contexts, women's sexuality is also closely aligned with the utilitarian function of childbirth, here an affliction which anchors both Violette and Florence. With so much in common, the two make friends over the latter confronting the former over the phantom sex noises (Léger is a playwright and there is excruciating joy in the candour of the film's awkward dialogue concerning sexual situations), and in bonding embolden each other's discontent and subsequent attempts to self-actualise.
It is joy to see the blossoming friendship of the two, which manifests in drunken karaoke, drunken flirting and drunkenness, and the ensuing sex positivity of their eventual affairs. In an amusing inversion of the cheeky "Confessions of..." series (you know, Window Cleaner/Driving Instructor/Dangerous Mind, etc, the first of which arriving four years after Two Women in Gold, though), the women contrive to appoint various repairmen and technicians to take advantage of at home. Except there is no coercion here, with the auspicious professionals unable to believe their luck. Following the yonic vexation of a u-bend hammer bash, Florence stands over a fortuitous plumber as she fiddles with the tap, the camera lingering on a forceful upskirt shot: "it's all wet," the pipefitter quips. Across the hall, Violette has purloined hamster droppings as part of an elaborate (and surely unnecessary) scheme to seduce a local exterminator, who naturally becomes the resident fornicator...
Both attractive actors are filmed via the female gaze, with emphasis on female pleasure and celebration, rather than objectification, of the body (the film does attempt to redress hegemonic visual modes through a leitmotif of male bum but let's be real, the snag with scopophilia is that men are just not as interesting to look at as women are; I'm sorry but it is true). And it all rumbles along pleasurably due to immensely likeable performances, soft but hot sex scenes, and vivid, warm-hearted direction.
Two Women is a feel-good film; both in the sense of the protagonists' successful pursuit of carnal pleasure, but also that it's a fun watch. The encroaching narrative concern with Two Women, however, is the abiding question of how, within the Todorovian demands of three act structures, Robichaud and Léger are going to resolve all of this lovely emancipation and sex positivity in a way which suits the accepted parameters of drama without undoing the film's continuing message (do both women stop shagging around and accept their boring lives, do they consent to their straight person destiny and "settle" "down")? The quandary proves difficult, with the narrative eventually reaching a strangely engineered compromise. In a film about banging, we end with a whimper... which may be disappointing in terms of plot satisfaction, but thematically is perhaps analogous with the typical erratic experience of heterosexual coupling, amirite girls?!
Two Women is in UK cinemas from April 3rd.
