Just perfect...

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Tout pour plaire, or 35 Something as it is called abroad, is a thoroughly enjoyable flick for grrlz. It has no pretensions of being Palme d'Or material, but neither is the majority of films made in the world. This film aims merely to entertain the audience with the trials and tribulations of a trio of upper middle class Parisian women, friends since childhood. One, is the eternal bachelorette who chases men away with her scathing sarcasm, the second unhappily married and unappreciated at work and the third in a loving marriage with a good for nothing painter as husband.The film follows the girls through a difficult time in their lives. The first has been dumped by her insecure boyfriend, the second discovers her husband is cheating and the third contemplates cheating herself with a man who is more energetic and ambitious than her lazy husband.All's well that ends well. If you do not have too high expectations of this film, it will keep you pleasantly entertained for an hour and a half.

When on wants to photograph something with the best brightness possible photographs use a tripod. To tell us a delightful story the Director Cécile Telerman (also co-writer of the script) used three excellent french actress: Mathilde Seigner, Anne Paurillaud and Judith Godrèche. They play (in sequence): Juliette - beginning counselor who doesn't measure her words (crass but truthful) - Florence (example of perfect mother/wife always willing to serve the husband "an artist who never have sold a single work" and with great sacrifice, including jeopardizing her career, educated their son). The film is typically french (scenaries) for instance: 1) a quick look of a beautiful square, in which the three friends talk and walk - the camera moving backwards; and 2) a table with bottles of wine (when I saw that scene I remembered my last visit to Paris, his tasteful wines and food...) To the point: a highly recommendable movie for those who like a comedy like only french and/or Belgian people can do. By the way: is the personage Xavier (Bernard Yerlès) a motion-picture producer and/or director a "copy" of Cécile Telerman? In a scale of 1 to 10, I vote 9 (excellent).

Three women at late thirties comment their relationship with men, and try to explain why are they so bad. All have their problems, but lack of love is the worse, so they will have to do a great job to solve this. Well, the movie is boring, the story is stupid and none of the actress are good. In addition, they ask themselves why their relationship with men are so bad, when they are absolutely paranoid, hysteric and its impossible to deal with them. If they were not so miserable, men would come to them (as happens at the end, when they start to act as a normal person, not mental). It is supposed to be a comedy, but actually, I have smiled in all the film indeed (well, maybe when it ended, as it was done). It is just a very bad movie, there are many better ones.

This is another of those extra-light souffles the French turn out so effortlessly and which, like Domestic champagne, slip down easily on their own turf but seldom travel well. There's absolutely no reason why distributors would want to import this, none of the three leading actresses have much of, if any at all, a following outside France despite boasting three very respectable CVs. This is yet another take on our old fried the mid-life crisis as it applies to three thirty-something girls who have been friends since childhood, doctor, Judith Godreche, lawyer Mathilde Seigner and Indian chief Anne Parilllaud. Not a lot happens, they go shopping, go drinking, indulge in girl talk, have affairs or not as the case may be but they do it with panache, it's pleasant to watch and entirely forgettable. 6 stars.