The Women On The 6th Floor

Synopsis: It is Paris, 1962. When stockbroker, Jean-Louis Jouvert (Fabrice Luchini) and his wife Suzanne (Sandrine Kimberlaine) lose their long-term German maid, they replace her with Spanish senorita, Maria (Natalia Verbeke). Enchanted by Maria, Jean-Louis comes to learn about her life and that of her friends who all work as domestics.

In French film there are innumerable incarnations the older man/younger woman scenario and, in essence, Women On The 6th Floor belongs with them. Penned by director le Guay, who was inspired to write this screenplay by his own childhood, it is a well-crafted feel-good film enhanced by its period setting.

Fabrice Luchini carries the film as the good-natured creature of habit, Jouvert, who has lived in the same apartment building all his life and whose day peaks each morning with his boiled egg. As his object of desire, Natalia Verbeke is as improbably gorgeous as only the French would allow, but the actress also displays an appealing demureness that perfectly suits the role. Le Guay shows up both sides well, letting the camera linger on her beauty and even managing to work in a nude scene for the benefit of the male gaze. The relationship between the two, as Jouvert finds himself gradually lifted on the wings of love, is quite charmingly handled.

Less convincingly-handled is Jouvert’s typically bourgeois marriage which is left largely as background element. Sandrine Kimberlaine seems too young for the role and it is difficult to understand why they are married, how they came to have two children or why Suzanne lives a life of socialite idleness. Scriptwise, there really needed to be more substance here. Equally the Spanish maids are all of a type, with only one, emotionally scarred by the Civil War, distinguished from the rest and who introduces a secondary element to Jouvert's awakening. In this matter in particular The Women On The 6th Floor, recalls The Help, a story about Negro maids in the American Deep South in the 1960s, also released the same year.  Politics are far less central to this film but as an instance of the pervasive Gallic male sexual fantasy it is a graceful example and as long as that doesn't irritate you, it should provide a relatively genial time.

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