François Ozon (“Sitcom”, “Sous le sable”, “Swimming Pool”) is to French Cinema what Almodovar is to the Spanish one: A national treasure.  This very prolific director makes one film per year. Each one is unique. Each one bears the Ozon trademark: Powerhouse performances by the female monstres sacrés of French Cinema, masterfully selected and directed by Ozon.

A potiche (ornamental vase) is the French expression for a good-looking woman who is just as useless as she is pretty. Catherine Deneuve is the Potiche of Ozon’s farce.

Based on the play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, at first, you think you are in a Sacha Guitry farce. Oh que non! (NOT!)

The story is set in 1977 in the town of Sainte Gudule. Suzanne Pujol (Deneuve), the prim and proper daughter of a fair, beloved and deceased industrialist seems to be happily married to Robert (Fabrice Luchini) a high-strung husband who now rules over Suzanne and the Pujol family’s umbrella factory with an iron fist.  Suzanne lives in her gilded cage, she writes poetry and dotes over her husband and two grown-up children while Robert schtoops his lovely secretary. Everything seems to be pretty hunky dory in a classic French way. But discontent is brewing.

Their daughter, (Judith Godrèche) a jolie potiche like her mother announces she wants to divorce her husband who is always away on business. Their son  (Jérémie Régnier) looking like a dead ringer for late French singer Claude François has a new girlfriend he wants to marry. Robert’s secretary and long-time lover (Karin Viard) wants him to finally make her an honest woman.

All hell breaks loose when the factory workers go on strike.  Robert has a heart attack. His doctor orders Robert to take time off. Somebody must deal with the strike and run the factory in this time of crisis. Suzanne decides to take charge.  She enlists the help of the communist mayor, her old beau and Robert’s sworn enemy(Gérard Depardieu).

Ozon’s script sings. Deneuve’s performance is superlative. Depardieu is in full form and extremely touching. We love to hate Luchini. The rest of the cast, all the way to the union reps are masterfully cast and directed.  With machine-gun witty and incisive dialogue, larger than life characters going places you never expect to, a plot with more twists and turn than a best-selling novel, this stylish, thoroughly charming Ozon film is pure delight.

It is full of clin d’oeils to Deneuve’s long illustrious career (the umbrella factory being one to: “Les Parapluies de Cherbourg’).

An ode to the rise of the women’s lib movement, a social commentary on the decline of the French bourgeoisie’s power over the working class, and the machistas’ rule over their potiche wifes, let’s hope eOne opens “Potiche” soon on our Canadian screens.