Odette Toulemonde (2006)

Directed by: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt | 100 minutes | drama, comedy, romance | Actors: Catherine Frot, Albert Dupontel, Jacques Weber, Alain Doutey, Camille Japy, Fabrice Murgia, Nina Drecq, Jacqueline Bir, Laurence dAmelio, Julien Frison, Erik Burke, Aïssatou Diop, Nicolas Buysse, Bruno Metzger, Cindy Besson

‘Odette Toulemonde’ is a romantic drama by playwright Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt. Schmitt is best known for his novels and plays that have been translated and performed in more than thirty countries. He grew up with his two atheistic parents, but once freed from home he became first agnostic and later Christian. This search for himself, his faith and his true identity and his predilection for philosophy, clearly form a basis in his novels, plays and also in his first feature film ‘Odette Toulemonde’.

For the romantics who, comme Amélie Poulain, like a fairy tale with a modern twist, ‘Odette Toulemonde’ is a real treat. Main character Odette works in the make-up department of a large department store in Charleroi. She lives in a bleak Belgian terraced house with her gay son and a teenage daughter. She wears the same old-fashioned, old-pink suit every day, puts her hair up in the same way every day and is a very ordinary and simple woman in her whole way of doing things. Odette’s husband has been dead for ten years and if it weren’t for the books of the French writer Balthazar Balsan, she says she would have committed suicide twenty times already.

Balsan’s books are for Odette an escape from melancholy reality. They give her energy and hope to get out of bed every day and work for other people. They also ensure that Odette sometimes seems to literally rise above everything else. When this happens, she admonishes herself to calm down: “Calm down Odette, keep calm.” When Balthazar Balsan comes to Brussels for a signing session of his latest book, Odette does not hesitate for a moment and travels to Brussels by bus. Once face to face with the writer, Odette cannot utter a meaningful word. She decides to write him a letter, explaining to Balsan how much he means to her and millions of others. However, Balsan’s new book is completely burned down by the famous reviewer Olaf Pims. And when Balsan finds his wife kissing Pims in a restaurant, it’s the last straw and he makes a drastic decision. This decision eventually leads him to Odette, where he knocks at the door and asks if he can come and stay for a few days.

Odette doesn’t know what hit her when her hero suddenly shows up at her door. Of course she takes the writer, good as she is, into her home. The high-spirited Odette does her utmost to teach Balsan, and later his son, what happiness is and how to appreciate the little things in life. Balsan soon falls for Odette, but despite his advances, Odette holds off the boat. She stubbornly clings to her love and loyalty for her late husband. The more Odette tries to help everyone around her, the harder it gets for herself. As her last name suggests, Odette feels that she should be there for the whole world and that she herself comes last. Schmitt illustrates this by means of short scenes in which Odette talks with an imaginary Jesus who is dressed as an ordinary citizen. In the eyes of Schmitt, Odette is fighting a battle to make the world a little better, just like Jesus. Perhaps this comparison is a bit exaggerated for the agnostic and atheists among us, but in today’s fairy tale these scenes are not that strange. Sweet as she is, Odette eventually even tries to glue the marriage of Balsan and his adulterous wife. This turns out, both for her and for her imagined Jesus, to be the grace blow that her heart could no longer bear. Who takes care of the world and Odette now that she can no longer do it herself?

‘Odette Toulemonde’ is a cute and sweet film, without extremes. Because there are few major events and fanfare in the film, the whole ripples a bit too slowly at times. This is not very disturbing, however.

Catherine Frot plays her part very convincingly and naturally, it seems that Odette Toulemonde really becomes a part of herself in the film. Every now and then she sings and dances along to the exotic 1920s songs of Josephine Baker. These are really the raisins in the porridge. When you’re in a slump, ‘Odette Toulemonde’ helps to put everything back into perspective. The world isn’t that bad, even for a middle-aged widow living in a run-down terraced house in Charleroi. Wonderful to dream away with, pour tout le monde.