Laurence Leboeuf, left, and Karine Gonthier-Hyndman play neighbouring Montreal mothers Violette and Florence in Two Women.Supplied
Two Women
Directed by Chloe Robichaud
Written by Catherine Léger, based on the film Two Women in Gold by Claude Fournier
Starring Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Laurence Leboeuf and Mani Soleymanlou
Classification N/A; 100 minutes
Opens in select theatres May 30
The fourth feature by Canadian filmmaker Chloé Robichaud, Two Women, is an adaptation of a 2023 stage play by Catherine Léger, itself an adaptation of Claude Fournier’s 1970 sex comedy Two Women in Gold. This version is potholed by a kind of contrived gaze meant to subvert its ‘70s predecessor – about bored, sexed-up Quebecois housewives serially cheating on their husbands with repair men – but totally misplaces its humour and verve in the process.
In Two Women, neighbouring Montreal mothers Violette (Laurence Leboeuf) and Florence (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) meet after the former complains of a cawing sound emanating from their shared wall, what she assumes to be her “auditory exhibitionist” neighbour’s screechy, lustful moans. Florence assures her that this cannot be the case as she and her brash and uncaring boyfriend David (Mani Soleymanlou) no longer have sex. (In a later scene, he confesses, “I love her how you love a plant.”)
This strikes a chord with Violette, a demure new mother, whose husband Benoit (Félix Moati) travels excessively as a pharmaceutical rep – all the while cheating on her with his succubus chic co-worker (Juliette Gariépy of Red Rooms). It is made painstakingly clear that these women are unfulfilled, seemingly as pre-emptive justification for their shared sexual epiphanies. Florence’s 10-year-old son named his pet hamster after her – an unsubtle “homage” that makes clear that she is treated worse than a rodent – while David resists her choice to halt antidepressants by forcefully taking her medication himself.
Newly unmedicated, Florence’s libido returns instantly and without withdrawal symptoms – far-fetched after years of taking the meds to curb suicidal ideation and alcoholism. She seduces a cable guy (rounded out by an intriguing scene of clothes-on action) and instantly begins to critique the tenets of monogamy that have defined her relationships. Florence makes unprofound but fashionable points to Violette about how monogamy serves men but limits women’s freedoms, and how they ought to pursue “infinite kinds of pleasure” instead.
Violette follows suit by shaking sheets with an exterminator (the very same one she insisted check the walls for cawing crows earlier), and the women establish a roster of service workers that functions like an escort service. In a modern re-spinning, which insists on humanizing these suburban women rather than solely sexualizing them, it seems odd to keep to a formula of throwaway labourers marked by their sexual utility.
Similarly, a lightly queer dynamic can be read between Florence and Violette, but this is never taken up, despite Florence at one point having a sexual encounter with a female window cleaner – notably, also, the only hookup that takes place off-screen and is left ambiguous. Instead, Two Women follows the more unimaginative thread of how sexual fulfilment (by way of cheating) makes these characters more attentive mothers and wives to their bumbling, undeserving partners.
Classified as a “maple syrup porno” – a term concocted by Variety to describe the wave of soft-core films produced in Quebec between 1969 and 1971 – Fournier’s Two Women in Gold was devilishly light on its feet, with the promiscuous lead characters put on trial (and eventually made stars) after one of their lovers died abruptly during intercourse, inspiring a Broadway producer to direct a musical about their lives.
Despite thoughtful compositions by cinematographer Sara Mishara, Robichaud‘s interpretation feels severe and blandly literal, indulging ugly scenery where the original found an eye-catching and uncanny B-movie aesthetic. The setting is an eco-housing complex, complete with board meetings about reusable bags and greenhouses, and, at one point, the husbands attend a Montreal Canadiens game where the camera needlessly lingers on the ice.
As with Robichaud‘s 2023 debut Days of Happiness – which followed a lesbian conductor gearing up to perform Mahler, in unfortunately close succession to the similarly themed 2022’s Tár – this film feels conceptually derivative but adjusted in all the wrong directions. While the performances are memorable (Gonthier-Hyndman especially), there is an indifference in the writing, particularly around Florence’s mental health, that feels off-putting while impersonating compassionate comedy. Here and there, some gags work, but one is liable to emerge from the whole exercise feeling weary rather than liberated.
