Painfully unconvincing on almost every level
Madame, a variation on the ever-popular upstairs-downstairs theme, barely registers as an attempt at social commentary.
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THERE are worse places than Paris as the setting for a movie but Madame, a modern-day fairy tale about a clash of class and culture, doesn't do the City of Light (or itself, for that matter) any favours. When characters are thinly sketched and the narrative sputters, even the scenery tends to look dull.
Written and directed by Amanda Sthers, Madame is a French production that stars Harvey Keitel and Toni Collette as Bob and Anne Fredericks, a well-heeled American couple in Paris. They own a handsome period home with upscale furnishings and have a penchant for the finer things in life, including a painting by Caravaggio.
The masterpiece takes pride of place on the mantlepiece but unknown to Anne, her husband is in a financial bind and with the banks closing in he needs to make sure it sells to a wealthy collector (Stanislas Merhar), a guest at a dinner party they are hosting. When Bob's novelist son Steven (Tom Hughes) shows up unannounced and suffering from writer's block, Anne is panic-stricken because there are now (an unlucky) 13 guests at the dining table.
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