Butler's Cinema Scene

Toni Collette, Rossy de Palma, Harvey Keitel

“MADAME” My rating: C

91 minutes |No MPAA rating

Farce should be lighter than air. “Madame” seems to have a bowling ball in its pocket.

Created by filmmaker Amanda Sthers mostly as a vehicle for the appealingly eccentric Rossy de Palma (the one-time Spanish model who for a while was a staple of Pedro Almodovar comedies), “Madame” offers an upstairs/downstairs scenario in which, thanks to a case of mistaken identity, a housemaid gets the life of a princess.

Maria (de Palma) is the chief maid and housekeeper for wealthy American Bob (Harvey Keitel) and his trophy wife Anne (Toni Collette), who are spending the season in their Paris home.  On the night of a big dinner party the superstitious Anne realizes that there will be 13 sitting at the table.

Panicked, she orders the reluctant Maria to trade in her black-and-white domestic’s outfit for party duds and pose as one of the guests, bringing attendance up to a safe 14.  Just keep quiet and mysterious, Anne advises her terrified employee.

Instead a tipsy Maria charms everyone with a slightly off-color joke, attracting the attention of David (Michael Smiley), a bearded British art broker who is far less stuffy than the words “British art broker” would suggest.

David’s pursuit of Maria (he believes she’s some sort of European nobility) particularly galls Anne, whose own romantic life leaves something to be desired.

Maria, on the other hand, is thrilled to be anyone’s object of desire.

The Cinderella aspects of “Madame” are time-tested, but what should be charming here comes off mostly as laborious. Sthers’ dialogue goes for the obvious; moreover, with the exception of Maria and David most of the characters come off as pampered assholes.

Anne’s treatment of her long-time maid is borderline hateful.

That “Madame” works at all is largely due to de Palma, who is not conventionally beautiful but striking nonetheless, with a sort of Anna Magnani earthiness that transcends the screenplay’s inanities.

| Robert W. Butler