A movie this thematically scattered, this unapologetically artificial, shouldn’t be so enjoyable. Potiche is a film that opens like a live-action cartoon: Catherine Deneuve out for a sunny run, decked out in her best jogging suit, gaily scribbling bad poetic couplets in her tiny notepad, inspired by the frolicking wildlife along the path — including two bunnies doing what bunnies are famous for doing. From here, we move through what feels like the setup for a bad French sitcom back at home, spend some time in screwball farce, touch on overblown melodrama, threaten twice to crash headlong into candy-colored musical, before finally settling in for a Norma Rae-shaded personal-is-political (and vice-versa) feminist third act. There’s no way this works, but through the magical touch of cinematic alchemist François Ozon, it does.

Ozon’s film — which is based on a ten-year-old French play, but takes place in the late 70s — stars Deneuve as Suzanne Pujol, the wife of Robert (Fabrice Luchini), an anger-prone businessman who runs the umbrella factory handed down to her by her father. The film’s title translates literally as “vase,” but is a slang term roughly equivalent to “trophy wife” — less in the American sense of a young wife taken by an older man as a symbol of his power or virility, but more as a thing once beloved, now set on a shelf and largely ignored.

Suzanne laughs off Robert’s crankiness, his casual abuse of the workers at his factory, and simply ignores his constant philandering. When he tells her about taking a business associate to a local night club, the “Badaboum,” she asks why he never takes her there, seemingly oblivious to what goes on between him and the showgirls at the club. Her daughter Joelle challenges her mother as to why she puts up with it all; she’s planning on leaving her own husband for the same reasons herself.

Suzanne is forced to take more control, though, when Robert suffers a heart attack brought on in part by the stress of his workforce going on strike. He makes it through being taken hostage by his workers, but it’s an argument with Maurice Babin (Gérard Depardieu) that brings on the attack. Babin is the Communist mayor and local member of parliament whose rhetoric Robert blames for starting the strike in the first place. But it was also Babin who — at his old flame Suzanne’s behest — manages to get Robert released on the condition that he is willing to negotiate. When he takes ill, Suzanne steps in and gives the workers most of what they want, longing for the harmonious days when her father ran the factory, beloved by all the workers for his fairness and generosity. This leads to a whole range of personal, professional, and political plot twists that take the movie to wholly unexpected places by the end.

Ozon’s approach, which juxtaposes so many styles, works because of his lightly satirical touch that never becomes so broad that it distracts from the story. He recognizes that if you’re going to have a movie with Catherine Deneuve running an umbrella factory, one can’t help but reference the dazzling technicolor look of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg — but there’s no need to be overt about it. Similarly, he makes sure the characters deliver their deliberately soapy dialogue absolutely straight, selling the awareness of its artificiality without resorting to spoofing it. The same goes for the colorful, just-built theatrical sheen, and the gauzy, soft-lit ’70s-style flashbacks. Ozon may sometimes give us a wink, but never a nudge, trusting that we’ll understand that it’s an exercise in style that works to support the farcical elements of the story.

Ozon manages to coax performances out of Deneuve and Depardieu that remind one why they’re such legendary actors. In roles that could so easily descend into caricature, both of them commit to making these characters feel like they have a rich history and complexities that the screwball elements of the situation normally shouldn’t allow.

Deneuve’s Suzanne goes through remarkable changes through the film, and she comes out of it a different woman than the one who started it. She ends up showing her daughter — who was more talk than action when it came to standing up for herself — what liberation is really about. Her journey becomes Ozon’s heartfelt, if slightly off-kilter, tribute to second-wave feminism, and to the power of a woman in control of her own destiny to realize every bit of her talent and potential.

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Potiche
Directed by François Ozon
Written by François Ozon, based on the play by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini
Running time: 103 minutes
Rated R for some sexuality.
Opens today at Bethesda Row, Shirlington, and Cinema Arts