Dry Cleaning

I liked this 1997 French feature by Anne Fontaine more than its cutesy predecessor (Augustin, 1995), but its portrait of middle-class sexual repression is every bit as calculated. A couple who’ve been married for 15 years and who run a dry-cleaning shop encounter a couple of sexual outlaws performing at a local nightclub, and their lives are turned topsy-turvy with ultimately grim results. Like a lot of bourgeois French cinema, this takes a fairly dark view of liberation; the acting isn’t bad, however, with Miou-Miou a particular standout as the wife. (JR)

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