Parky at the Pictures (DVD 3/1/2019)

Peering through the gap left by a half-open door, fiftysomething Chela (Ana Brun) watches her companion Chiquita (Margarita Irún) show a haughty woman around the items they have for sale in their dark Asunción home. As they have run up debts, Chiquita has tried to cook the books to keep cash coming in. But, despite the best efforts of their loyal friend, Carmela (Alicia Guerra), Chiquita has been sentenced for fraud and hires illiterate maid Pati (Nilda Gonzalez) to look after Chela while she's inside. She shows her how to prepare the drinks tray that Chela requires while painting and explains how many pills she needs to take each day. Yet, when Carmela offers them an envelope containing donations raised during her birthday party, Chela rejects it and criticises Chiquita for the fact that they have been selling her heirlooms and nothing belonging to her family. 

Nettled by the remark and by Chela's rebuttal of her advances because she smells of cigarettes and alcohol, Chiquita spends her last night on the sofa and Chela seems more concerned with the fact that her hair needs dyeing than with her partner's imminent incarceration. Looking very much out of place, Chela accompanies Chiquita to the prison gates and looks around anxiously when she pays her first Saturday visit and sees how well the pragmatic Chiquita has settled into her new surroundings. Back home, however, she keeps hearing noises in the night and asks Pari to sleep on the sofa to reassure her. However, she gently chides her for putting the items in the wrong place on her tray and only forgives her when she discovers she has a talent for foot massages. 

Chela feels the need of a little pampering after her elderly neighbour, Pituca (Maria Martins), asks if she can give her a lift to her daily card game. As she is afraid of being kidnapped, Pituca no longer trusts taxis and is willing to pay for Chela to drive her across town in the Mercedes left to her by her father. Chiquita is worried, as Chela doesn't have a licence and is usually nervous behind the wheel. But Chela welcomes the chance to get out of the house and earn a few guaraní. Moreover, after helping Angy (Ana Ivanova) collect her things after splitting up with her boyfriend, Cesar (Raul Chamorro), Chela develops a crush on the statuesque fortysomething and even agrees to risk the motorway to take her mother to Itauguá for her regular medical appointments.

Having told Pituca that Chiquita has gone to stay in Punta del Este, Chela hopes that her friends and neighbours will stop gossiping about her absence. But she asks Carmela to attend a meeting with Chiquita's lawyer on her own, as she wants to have a trial run on the M2 before taking Angy's mother. Moreover, when she sees Chiquita having her hair done by the working-class minions who have become part of her prison circle, Chela feels superfluous and feels put out by her lover's joke about her being like Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976).

However, she also feels more confident and comes out to greet the women browsing through her possessions. She refuses to offer a discount for her dining table and seems not to mind the hole that it leaves in the centre of the room. Indeed, Chela's focus is solely on Angy and she smartens herself up and uses lipstick for the trip to Itauguá. While waiting outside the clinic, she allows Angy to teach her how to smoke and tries on her sunglasses because the younger woman thinks they suit her. 

Having pleasured herself for the first time in a long while, she also accepts an invitation to meet two of her divorced friends while waiting for the card game to end. They chatter inanely and Chela puts up with their thoughtless remarks about lowering standards to drive people around because Angy kisses her on both cheeks and places a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Moreover, she would rather be associating with widows and bimbos than Chiquita's new acquaintances, like the woman who killed her husband's mistress. 

Having bought a small table to replace the one she sold, Chela lets her piano go. But she keeps taking tips from Pituca and her friends and delights in her moments alone with Angy in Itauguá. She discovers that Angy also paints and was nicknamed `Chiqui' by her father. On revealing that her own father called her `Poupée', Chela is thrilled when Angy starts to use it. However, she is hurt when Angy abandons her to go off with Cesar and Pati realises something is wrong when Chela mopes around the house that evening. Hiding her pain, she continues driving and listens as Pituca badmouths one of her bridge school after she reminisces about her 52 years of marital bliss. 

Having been disturbed by a prisoner shaking the bars of Chiquita's cell while she was waiting for her to return from the showers, Chela takes Pituca and Angy to a funeral. Saddened by seeing how one of her ex-lovers had gone to seed, Angy asks Chela if they can go back to her house with a bottle of wine, while the reception continues to midnight. Chela sends Pati to bed and listens intently, as Angy candidly describes how she used to have threesomes with her the man and his mistress and Chela is so overwhelmed by the fact that Angy is bisexual that she makes an excuse to calm herself down in the bathroom. When she gets caught peeking at Angy reclining on the sofa, however, she bolts back into the bathroom and is crushed to discover that Angy has disappeared into the night. 

Driving round in the hope of spotting her, Chela returns to the venue to find that everyone has left. She buys a hot dog at a snack bar and sits in a daze at one of the pavement tables. Indeed, she is so disorientated that she goes to the prison and is surprised when the duty guards tell her that she has missed visiting hours. Returning home, she leaves Angy a phone message and thinks she has called to see her the next morning when the doorbell rings. But it's Carmela bringing Chiquita home early and Chela has to fight to hide her disappointment. 

She is also dismayed when Chiquita does a deal to sell the bottle green Mercedes and remains so out of sorts that she drops her drinks tray. Unable to sleep next to her snoring lover, Chela gets up in the night and climbs the stairs to the roof of the house in which she was born to let the breeze blow across her face. Pati comes to check if she is okay and they hug. The next morning, there's no sign of Chela or the car keys and Chiquita is bemused to find the gates open and the car gone. 

The closing song, `Greetings From Ypacari', signifies that Chela has flown the nest for good. But Martinessi leaves us guessing whether she has taken her chance with Angy or simply decided to abandon the cosseted existence she has known since she was a girl. Given that he also uses a snippet from Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, the chances of an inglorious retreat remain on the cards, however.

Acting predominantly with her eyes, while occasionally arching a brow or inclining her head, Ana Brun is outstanding as the embarrassed heiress who comes to realise that status, privilege and material possessions are not as important as she had always believed. She might continue to prioritise her own desires, but she learns to fend for herself and make her own decisions without seeking the approval of her father or her partner. In many ways, her character resembles that of fellow Berlin laureate Paulina García in Gloria. But this is a much more watchful performance that is made all the more poignant by Margarita Irún's controlling complacency, Ana Ivanova's careless coquettishness and the excellent María Martins's class-conscious cattiness. 

Pacing the action to perfection, Martinessi has Luis Armando Arteaga's widescreen, but shallow-focused camera make telling comparisons between the wood-panelled gloom of Carlo Spatuzza's shabbily chic interiors and both the brightly coloured bustle of the prison visiting area and the sunlit city beyond Chela's front door. He also invites the viewer to realise that this is a world largely devoid of men and prompts speculation about what might have happened in recent patriarchal Paraguayan history to impact on survival rates among the elite. But, while it hints at dark deed, this is a story about reawakening and renewal, whose deft intimacy and caustic wit make it one of the best films of the year so far.

Inspired by a conversation overheard on a Cologne subway train, Ali Soozandeh's debut feature, Tehran Taboo, provides a disconcerting, if not always subtle insight into the hypocrisy and repression endured by so many women in Iran. Having worked with Ali Samadi Ahadi on The Green Wave (2010), a hybrid live-action/animated documentary about the 2010 Revolution, Soozandeh opts to use the same blend of rotoscoped and motion-captured characters and computer-generated backdrops to recreate the Islamic Republic's capital city. But, while this will inevitably be compared to Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's Persepolis (2007), it's a much bolder exposé that sometimes suffers from Soozandeh's tendency to melodramatise and over-emphasise his message.

With her drug addict husband serving a lengthy prison sentence, Pari (Elmira Rafizadeh) has little option than to work as a prostitute to support her mute five year-old son, Elias (Bilal Yasar). However, while attempting to pleasure a punter (Farhad Abadinejad) as he drives through the snowy streets of Tehran, Pari is forced to drag Elias off the backseat when her client collides with the vehicle in front after spotting his daughter holding hands with her boyfriend on the pavement. She returns to her sparsely furnished flat and lets the boy sleep on the only bed. 

When Pari visits her husband in jail, he refuses to sign the documents that will allow her to file for divorce and she slams the door in indignation when Judge Adel (Hasan Ali Mete) agrees to bend the rules if she becomes his mistress. Having no choice, however, she agrees to his terms and he instals her in an apartment in a tower block in a bustling part of the city. As Pari dreams of turning the place into a home, Elias surveys their neighbours from the balcony. One of them, Babak (Arash Marandi), is a struggling musician who plays the accordion at an underground nightclub to a crowd that would rather be dancing to the DJ. Popping a pill, Babak wanders on to the floor and picks up Donya (Negar Mona Alizadeh), who has sex with him in the bathroom after swallowing a pill and smoking a joint.

The next day, while Babak is giving a piano lesson to a spoilt brat who cannot play, he gets a phone call from Donya asking him to meet her in the nearby park. She claims she is getting married in a couple of weeks and needs him to pay for an operation to repair her hymen so that her husband won't realise she's not a virgin. Anxiously watching a courting couple being harassed by the Morality Police, Babak calls his friend Amir (Morteza Tavakoli) for advice. He always has a different girl at his flat and mocks Babak for getting into a mess. But, when they visit the clinic, they discover that the procedure is not only expensive, but that it requires parental consent. 

As they leave, the camera swings past the door of the gynaecologist treating the pregnant Sara (Zahra Amir Ebrahimi). Her in-laws (Siir Eloglu and Klaus Ofczarek) are delighted with the news, but husband Mohsen (Alireza Bayram) is less effusive. He helps Pari carry a box up to her apartment, where she is too preoccupied with messages on her phone to notice Elias drop a water bomb made from one of his mother's strawberry condoms. Looking out of the window, Elias sees Babak recording ambient sound to mix into his latest composition. But he is disturbed by a call from Amir, who has found someone who can provide them with a fake Chinese hymen. 

Amir is cross when Babak invites Donya to join them and she scurries out of the market when she spots her fiancé (Gernot Polak). Babak is unnerved by his hulking size and is perplexed when Amir returns to reveal that the Chinese option is a non-starter. Instead, they call on a shady backstreet medic (Mohammad Reza Khajevand), who promises discretion if not cleanliness. Babak's frustration is matched by Sara's when she successfully applies for a job, only to learn that her husband has to sign a consent form and return it in person. 

Defying her mother-in-law, Sara feeds the stray black cat that mooches around the building. She also agrees to look after Elias while Pari is working. although she informs her that she's a nurse at the local hospital rather than telling her the truth. Spending the evening with Sara after being refused a place at the nearby school for insulting the headmistress, Elias watches Mohsen working on one of the kites he flies from the balcony. He also eavesdrops as Mohsen refuses to allow Sara to work in case she has another miscarriage and watches as he hides some sweets while his diabetic father takes a nap. 

In gratitude for Sara babysitting, Pari insists on taking her to dinner at a restaurant. She is impressed that she has a literature degree and wants to teach to make a contribution to society rather than sit at home. However, when Pari offers to read her coffee grounds to predict the sex of the baby, the lights go out and Sara has a feeling of foreboding. Meanwhile, Babak is refused a bank loan by Mohsen and has an application to release an album of his music rejected because his sound is insufficiently Islamic. He tries to persuade the owner of a small studio (Morteza Latif) to record a few tracks. But, while he is reluctant to take a risk with Babak's unconventional style, he does offer him a job helping record the jingles and adverts that play on the local radio station. 

Babak meets Elias when Pari services a client in Amir's building and he uses the number of his wristband to call his mother. She is relieved to find the boy and accepts a lift home in Babak's car. He reveals that he is going to DJ a wedding because he needs the money to pay for an operation and Pari thinks he must be a good friend. However, while driving north, Babak gets caught at a checkpoint with a boot full of pornographic magazines and he is detained for several hours, even after he bribes the duty cop. Meanwhile, Elias helps Sara's father-in-law eat some chocolate and Pari has to feign being a nurse in order to give him an insulin shot because Sara and Mohsen are out. 

Elias plays football in the judge's garden when Pari calls to entertain him. He likes being throttled during sex and turns rough when Pari pulls too hard on his throat. She asks him about the younger woman she saw him canoodling in the backseat of his car, but he tells her to mind her own business and be patient about her divorce. Feeling low, Pari goes home and gets tipsy on a bottle of wine and persuades Sara to have a glass when she comes to collect Elias. They make a prank call to Yusuf (Thomas Nash), the nephew of the building janitor Ahmad (Payam Madjlessi), and send him on a wild goose chase for a sexual assignation near the mosque. 

Meanwhile, Babak is feeling nervous after being threatened by Donya's fiancé, while she gets some photographs taken for documents that suggest she may not be getting married after all. Sara is also concerned that the Morality Police will trace the call made from her phone, as her mother-in-law has told her that the janitor's nephew was badly shaken by the incident and wants the woman concerned arrested. Elias is frightened that his mother will be jailed, but Sara assures him that everything will be okay. While they are out, Pari agrees to see a friend of a trusted client and she is shocked when he turns out to be Mohsen. He pleads with her to say nothing to Sara and promises to repay the debt in any way he can. 

Realising that Mohsen can help Babak with a loan, she accompanies him to the bank, where Mohsen gives them the address of a forger who can supply Babak with a property document to bolster his application. However, Saleh (Farhad Payar) recognises Sara when she drops Pari and Elias at his workshop and he almost turns Babak and Donya down because he thinks they have also come for a counterfeit abortion form. He tells Babak that he should get a passport while he's here because Iran has gone to pot and that anyone who could leave should. Witnessing a public execution on his way home, Babak realises that he may well be right.

Much to Elias's dismay, Sara's mother-in-law captures the black cat (which has recently given birth to kittens) and Ahmad bashes it to death against the side of a dumpster while cursing the fact that his unmarried daughter is pregnant. He knows that Sara made the call to his nephew and he asks Mohsen to arrange a loan to help with his daughter's medical expenses or he will pass the number on to the Morality Police. Furious at his wife's recklessness, Mohsen accuses her of sleeping with the neighbourhood tradesmen and she snaps and says she has been with them all and had two abortions. Turning his back on her, Mohsen orders her to leave and the watching Elias feels deeply sorry for Sara because she has always been so kind to him. 

The next day, Babak has a photograph taken for his fake passport and Sara buys some drugs from a street dealer. Pari accompanies Donya to the clinic and they are puzzled why Babak has failed to show with the money. When they go to his flat, they discover he has cleared out and Pari watches a plane taking off from the nearby airport as Donya reveals that her fiancé is really a trafficker who sells Iranian virgins to clients in Dubai. Pari gives her some money to return to her family in the provinces and reassures her that things will work out. 

Upstairs, Mohsen's mother tells Elias that her husband is in hospital after having his gangrenous big toe amputated. She asks if he has seen Sara and he climbs on to the roof, where she is high on drugs and wondering which dress to wear. Elias wonders why she is behaving so oddly and agrees to film her on her phone, as she dons a pair of red wings fashioned from one of Mohsen's kites and informs the boy that she is an angel. Asking him to show the film to everyone she knows, Sara tells Elias to go home. As she jumps to her death, Elias finds a grey kitten cowering in a corner and he smuggles it into his room, as Pari tells him to sleep well because the judge has arranged for him to start school the following morning.

As the screen fades to black, it's impossible to avoid an overwhelming sense of sadness for the plight of the women depicted in this bold and well-meaning film. Yet, while it has the emotive pull of a Douglas Sirk or Rainer Werner Fassbinder picture (complete with its surfeit of reflective surfaces), this often has little of the nuance that could have prevented it from lapsing into melodrama. A few too many coincidences link the characters, while there isn't a single decent adult male on view, as even Babak proves to be watching his own back rather than trying to help Donya, whom he had seduced while she was under the influence of the substances that he had forced on her. By contrast, there are a couple of unsympathetic female characters, including Sara's mother-in-law and the headmistress. But even the cat trying to protect her young is ill-treated and one is left to wonder whether her kitten will be safe with a silent witness to all this misery. 

Despite having lived in Germany since leaving Iran in his mid-20s in 1985, Soozandeh appears well informed about the current problems afflicting his homeland and his street scenes teem with beggars of both sexes, as well as road sweepers who keep a furtive eye on unsuspecting by-passers. This sense of the citizenry being under surveillance is reinforced by the fact that several characters visit a photographer to have portrait shots taken against largely sombre backgrounds. But there are countless ways in which the rules imposed by the theocratic regime can be circumvented, while a greased palm can always make minor problems disappear. Such unflinching depiction of the hypocrisy of the patriarchal hierarchy is very much to Soozandeh's credit. But his denunciation would feel more trenchant if his storytelling was less  schematic. 

Produced on a modest budget, the visuals also seem a blatant in places, even though they took 13 months to composite. But Soozandeh and his 40-strong post-production team make inspired use of colour to heighten the stylised realism of ace cinematographer Martin Gschlacht's live-action work. Consequently, this looks and sounds superb, as Ali N. Askin's stridently atmospheric score reflects the conflicts between tradition and modernity that recur throughout the picture. Even though the digitisation masks them to a degree and some have their dialogue spoken by other performers, the cast also responds admirably to the challenge of acting against green screens, with Elmira Rafizadeh and Zahra Amir Ebrahimi being particularly expressive, alongside the watchful and accidentally complicit Bilal Yasar.

There are many ways to become a film-maker. Leanne Welham produced her first shorts with a camera borrowed from the family video company where she worked as an editor. As their standard improved, she received a grant to make Novio (2007), with Spanish director Ignacio Tatay, and this prompted the Film Council to back her next two ventures, Transgress (2009) and Nocturn (2010). Having completed `Big Girl' under Channel Four's Coming Up banner, Welham followed the shorts. Castaway (2014) and Occupy (2015), with a stint filming for various charities in Africa. 

This brought her to the attention of Sophie Harman, an academic at Queen Mary University in London, who wanted to use the prize money she had won for her work in global health politics to make a film about women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially, Harman envisaged produced a documentary. But, as they interviewed some 80 women in the coastal Tanzanian village of Miono, Welham decided the subject matter was better suited to a docurealist drama and the result is Pili, which was filmed over five weeks in the spring of 2016, with one trained actor and a lead who was spotted when she accompanied her older sister to the research sessions. With over 65% of the cast having been diagnosed HIV+, this gives `slice of life' cinema an entirely new meaning. 

Waking with a start in the simple shack beside a busy road that she shares with her two young children, Pili (Bello Rashid) is dismayed to discover that someone has damaged two of the planks in her front door. Having packed her son Ibrahim (Hardi and Faridi Yusufu) off to school and left her daughter (Latifa Samil) with her neighbour, Sekejua (Mwantumu Hussein Malongine), Pili passes through the village with a hoe over her shoulder. She is stopped by market trader, Mahera (Nkwabi Elias Ng'angasamala), who offers her a bun and reminds her that she can always come to him if she has any problems. 

Pili has much to worry about, as her untested husband had deserted her when he discovered that she had been diagnosed HIV+. However, she had kept the news secret and goes to a clinic in a neighbouring village to collect her free medication. She has the odd bout coughing while working for a pittance in the fields, but she has managed to hide her condition for several years. But, with her pills about to run out, Pili has to find the time and money to get a repeat prescription. 

Complicating the situation is the chance to realise a dream by taking over a vacant kiosk in the marketplace and opening a shop selling beauty products. Mahera gives her 48 hours to find the deposit and Pili visits the local Vikoba microcredit group to arrange a loan. Despite Pili needing the money urgently,  Leila (Mwanaidi Omari Sefi) insists on doing things by the book and tells her to produce a business plan for the committee to consider. Knowing that Pili is determined to improve herself (she listens to programmes in English on her wind-up radio while she toils), her friend, Cecilia (Sesilia Florian Kilimila), agrees to intercede for her. But she doesn't get her hopes up and asks farm foreman Abdul (Barry Issa Ally) if he would be willing to give her a loan. 

Thanks to Cecilia and Pili throwing herself on the committee's mercy with an impassioned speech, Leila bends the rules and even agrees to waive the usual week's wait for the money to be paid. However, Mahera is impatient to fill the stall and warns Pili that he will consider other applicants if she keeps messing him around. She pleads with him to give her time, but faints in the field the next morning and has to go to the village pharmacy to buy some ARVs. When she learns that the price has gone up, Pili is faced with risking sickness or facing up to the taboo surrounding her condition and registering at the free clinic. 

Frightened of being judged by her gossiping neighbour Ana (Siwazurio Mchuka) and jeopardising her chances of getting the kiosk, Pili takes the bus to Msata. She blacks out in the waiting room and Dr Mbwewe (Catherine Mgimwa) reminds her of the dangers of failing to take her medication. Advising her to take a CD4 test, the doctor offers to pay her bus fare to Bagamoyo and Pili agrees to go because the Viboka meeting isn't until 7pm. Passing a couple of white tourists at a market stall, Pili arrives at the hospital and looks at posters urging HIV patients to live positively and fight the stigma of the disease by avoiding isolation. She fears missing the bus and is about to leave when the doctor (Castor Alfred) calls her and warns her that her levels are low and that she needs to medicate in order to stave off full-blown AIDS.

Calling Cecilia when her bus breaks down, Pili hitches a ride on a truck and arrives back in Miono just as the committee meeting is breaking up. Realising she has no option, she confesses to her HIV status and explains that she had to go out of town for some emergency drugs. Leila agrees to reconvene and uses her casting vote to grant Pili the loan, even though she had initially been against her. She is suitably grateful and leaves Ibrahim to look after his sister so that she can pay Mahera. 

Initially, he refuses to see her, as he says the deadline has expired. But Pili shows him the money and Mahera invites her inside. His wife is in Dar-es-Salaam and he suggests that they seal the deal by sleeping together. Naturally, Pili is dismayed by his terms, especially when he insists on not using protection. But she has set her heart on opening a stall and she persuades him to allow her to keep half of the deposit to buy stock. 

Now taking her medication in public, Pili smiles when Ibrahim informs her that he is going to become a doctor to cure her. She is wearing bright red clothing and feeling so good about herself that she even invites Ana over for a cup of tea. While serving her first customer, Pili exchanges glances with Mahera and waves at Zuhura, as she heads out to the fields alone. Pili goes to call after her to explain what has been happening, but lets her wander into the distance, as there will be plenty of time to put things right.

Ending on an optimistic note, while remaining rooted in reality, Welham avers that there is hope if people are honest about their HIV status. Yet, by withholding vital information from Mehera, Pili shows a lack of responsibility that suggests she hasn't entirely come to appreciate the seriousness of her situation and its associated dangers. However, many will forgive her this grave misdemeanour, as she was seeking to provide for her offspring and clearly has no intention of repeating her mistake. 

Overcoming attempted extortion and a number of deaths in the village, Welham has produced a poignant and important film. It's not without moments of gentle humour, such as when Pili watches Ibrahim show off his dance moves to some music playing on her radio. But the focus is firmly on struggle, as Pili has to cope with exploitative employers, judgemental neighbours and the effects of her sickness. Interestingly, unlike many African films about the oppressive nature of patriarchal chauvinism, there are few male characters and no mention is made of religion. But Welham honours the tradition of indigenous film-making in her measured pacing and the deftly elliptical nature of her storytelling. 

She and cinematographer Craig Dean Devine also capture the contrasting atmospheres of the different villages and avoid sentimentalising the poverty in which Pili and her community live. Indeed, Welham presents a positive picture of how microfinancing initiatives allow people to help themselves rather than live on charitable donations. But this is a film intent on ensuring that audiences in the developed world don't forget what is happening in Africa and one hopes that Welham will return there some time in the future, after she follows her visit to Oxford to shoot an episode of Endeavour with a drama about the London Blitz.

Way back in 2011, David and Stéphane Foenkinos provided Audrey Tautou with one of her best post-Amélie parts in Delicacy, in which she had to pick up the pieces of her shattered life after husband Pio Marmaï is killed in a car accident. Tautou throws herself into her work in order to cope and easily resists the clumsy attentions of boss Bruno Todeschini, But she surprises herself by becoming attracted to co-worker François Damiens. Best friend Joséphine de Meaux insists she can do better. Yet, even though she knows that Damiens is not her type, Tautou seems prepared to take the risk of falling in love again. 

Now, the Foenkinos brothers have presented Karin Viard with an equally relishable role in Jealous. However, the march of time has overtaken a story depicting a middle-aged divorcée going off the rails and taking out her frustrations on her daughter, best friend and female colleagues. Thus, while Viard contributes a display of impeccable comic timing, she is left high and dry by a directorial perspective that feels gauche and out of touch.

While throwing a surprise 18th birthday party for her ballerina daughter, Dara Tombroff, fiftysomething Parisian literature Karin Viard discovers that she is sleeping with her boyfriend, Corentin Fila. She also learns that ex-husband Thibault de Montalembert is taking new partner Marie-Julie Baup on a trip to the Maldives. Best friend Anne Dorval tries to persuade Viard that the world is not conspiring against her and she proves the point by introducing her to the dashing Bruno Todeschini at a dinner party. However, Viard is furious when the principal admonishes her for resisting the efforts of new colleague Anaïs Demoustier to implement ideas that would link subjects across the curriculum. 

Viard takes out her frustration on Tombroff and slaps her face for coming home late and taking it for granted that Fila can sleep over. However, she also goes into a travel agency to cancel De Montalembert's holiday and throws Todeschini out of her apartment during an intimate dinner after accusing him of ogling Tombroff. She also tells Dorval that she has spotted her husband with another woman and, then, while cooking supper, she accidentally sends Tombroff into anaphylactic shock and she is forced to miss the second part of her audition for the Paris Opéra Ballet.

Having alienated just about everyone close to her, Viard can only go in one direction and few will be surprised by the number of rebuilt bridges and neatly tied loose ends. But, as in Anne-Gaëlle Daval's directorial debut, De Plus Belle, it's romance that enables Viard to overcome her troubles and this suggestion that a woman can only feel validated by the lover of a good man is insultingly simplistic. She's welcomed back at school in the closing scenes, but nothing is said about the solution that has evidently been found to her stand-off with Demoustier. Indeed, the majority of her other problems are resolved with equal ease and it's only in the last scene, in which a neighbour asks if she suffers from jealousy, that any hint is dropped that Viard might not have learnt her lesson after all. 

Ably supported by a solid ensemble - which also features Thérèse Roussel in a crucial cameo as the old lady Viard befriends at the swimming baths - Viard rises to the challenge of playing a deeply resistible character on a steepling down swing. But, unlike Léonor Serraille's attitude towards Laetitia Dosch's similar descent in Jeune Fille, the Foenkinos duo are more interested in pulling her out of the mire than addressing the root cause of her problems in a patriarchal society. Clearly, they meant well and this is anything but a work of condescending chauvinism. But its timing is just a little off.