Venus Beauty Institute (1999)

Tonie Marshall's engrossing film is a rare glimpse into the ups and downs of the life of a single middle-aged woman. Nathalie Baye stars as a forty-something beautician in a small salon, whose romantic life consists of a series of one-night stands. Even when a younger man Samuel Le Bihan becomes obsessed with her, she insists on her independence. As always, it seems that only the French care enough to make a truthful film about this kind of subject. In the Hollywood of yore this would have been made as a weepy melodrama, and in the Tinseltown of today it would be turned into a tale of female empowerment, but obviously in France it's possible to make a wise, slightly melancholy comedy about the quotidian adversity of one woman's life. Despite the script's wit, a painful morning-after scene is typical of the director's keen sense of the kind of cutting humiliations that can befall a woman of a certain age. And in the gossip and unfolding mini-dramas of the workplace, the film makes clear how all of the women must struggle to achieve the kind of relationships they want, regardless of age and attractiveness. Baye is wonderful in this part (though, even at 52, perhaps too attractive to play the everywoman) and Bulle Ogier, that other icon of French cinema, excels as the salon owner. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide