Lulu femme nue (2014)
Directed by Sólveig Anspach

Film Review

It was Sólveig Anspach who gave Karin Viard one of her best screen roles with her debut feature Haut les coeurs! (1999), so it was inevitable that the director and actress would one day team up for another similarly trenchant slice-of-life drama.  Adapted from an award winning graphic novel of the same title by Etienne Davodeau, Lulu femme nue is Anspach's fifth fictional feature to date and is very different, both in style and tone, from all of her previous work.  A contemplative road movie à la française, it offers an engaging, truthful and occasionally hilarious portrait of a married woman dragging herself out of the rut of middle-age dowdiness and, in so doing, discovering a new sense of purpose in her life.

The subject matter is hardly original.  It was only a few months ago that Catherine Deneuve went on a similar voyage of self-discovery in Emmanuelle Bercot's Elle s'en va (2013).  What Anspach and Viard bring to this familiar midlife crisis sub-genre is a true-to-life sensitivity tempered by a typically Gallic sense of irony.  The central character, Lulu, is a stereotypical frustrated housewife, the kind you would expect to find in nearly every British sitcom.  But as she slowly emerges from her tightly wrapped cocoon she develops, thanks to Viard's nuanced and captivating performance, into something far more complex and formidable - a liberated modern woman.

Lulu's process of spiritual rebirth begins when she comes across a sympathetic but unpredictable beach bum, played with surprising tenderness by the great Belgian actor-director Bouli Lanners.  It is this part of the film that is the most engaging - an honest depiction of two examples of human flotsam awakening in each other the noblest of sentiments as they tentatively reconnect with the world that has apparently cast both of them aside.  This quirky romantic interlude lasts too briefly and before we know it Lulu has shacked up with an older woman with whom she forms an even stronger bond of affection.  The latter is humourously played by Claude Gensac, still remembered for playing Louis de Funès' long-suffering films in his Gendarme films.  The trilogy of brief encounters concludes with Lulu lending moral support to a waif-like youngster, in the form of an enchanting Nina Meurisse.

Lulu femme nue doesn't quite match up to the excellence of Anspach's previous work - it has nothing like the emotional force of her first film and is far less entertaining than her recent off-beat comedy Queen of Montreuil (2013) - but it is a stirring and enjoyable reworking of a familiar subject.  Viard's performance is the best the actress has given in years, far more subtle and authentic than we have grown to expect of her lately.  With strong support from Lanners and Gensac, there is not much to complain about on the acting front.  There are, admittedly, a few flaws that are hard to miss (occasionally the low humour jars with Anspach's doggedly realist approach and some of the secondary characters veer dangerously close towards caricature), but these are readily forgiven.  With Viard at her best, served by a script worthy of her talents, Lulu femme nue is a downbeat feel-good film that is hard to resist.

Film Synopsis

After a particularly bad job interview, Lulu misses her train back home and has to spend the night in the Loire coastal town of St Gilles-Croix-de-Vie.  Acting on impulse, she decides not to head back home to her husband and three children but instead takes an impromptu break by the sea.  As she does so, she has three encounters that will change her life and help her to discover who she is.  First she meets Charles, a semi-vagrant man with whom she enjoys an unlikely romance...