DRY CLEANING
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Strand Releasing Director: Anne Fontaine Writer: Anne Fontaine, Gilles Taurand Cast: Charles Berling, Miou-Miou, Stanislas Merhar, Mathilde Seigner, Nanou Meister, Noe Pflieger, Michel Bompoil, Christopher King, Gerard Blanc, Betty Petristy, Bobby Pacha, Corinne Nejman, Therese Genin, Joelle Gregorie, Pascal Allio
Someone once said that the division of people into heterosexuals and homosexuals is an artificial one. The reality, he concluded, is that people separate into two categories: those who love and those who cannot. If you're one of the lucky persons in the former group, you could feel attracted to either sex. The theory is a provocative one, running completely counter to "normal" thought throughout the world. Broad-minded people accept the reality and validity of homosexuality but few people honestly believe that we're all bisexual, pushed into making a choice by the influence of bourgeois thinking.
But the intriguing presumption gets a thorough workout in Anne Fontaine's "Dry Cleaning," known in French as "Nettoyage a Sec, a film which has already garnered major international prizes: one at Venice for its screenplay, the other, a Cesar, going to Stanislas Merhar as best new actor. Mr. Merhar fully deserves such consideration for a genuine achievement, and the screenplay effectively deviates from a theme that has been done to death: that of a drifter who comes to town, causes trouble for a seemingly stable couple, and then leaves (either on his own feet or in a box). The classic tale, Tay Garnett's 1946 "The Postman Always Rings Twice," featured electrifying appearances by John Garfield and Lana Turner, the former in the role of a layabout who comes upon a diner run by Cecil Kellaway and Ms. Turner and destroys their marriage. In the more recent work, Robert M. Young's 1996 "Caught," a homeless Irish drifter eludes police by hiding in a fish store. The owners, played by Edward James Olmos and his wife by Maria Conchita Alonso, take him in to work as an assistant. Nick (Arie Verbeen) accepts Joe (Olmos) as a father figure but becomes sexually attracted to Joe's wife.
"Dry Cleaning" is both more complex than these predecessors and less so, less because the plotting is simpler, involving fewer outsiders; more, because the archetypal drifter becomes even more attracted to the father figure than to the older man's wife. Along with the creators of "Postman" and "Caught," writer-director Fontaine realizes that such a triangular arrangement can lead to no good.
In Fontaine's film Jean-Marie Kunstler (Charles Berling) and his wife Nicole (Miou-Miou), run a successful dry cleaning store in a French provincial town not too far from Paris. Jean-Marie is a typical small-town bourgeois, the sort of person who would not likely be cast in a commercial American movie as an audience in the U.S. would refuse to believe such an banal fellow could captivate a younger, sexier guy. His very profession serves as metaphor for his character: Jean-Marie is obsessed with cleanliness, with removing stains and ironing out creases. This is not the sort of person who gives in to irrational impulses. While Nicole is not content--she is fed up with cleaning other people's grime and has not had a decent vacation in ages--she has settled into her conventional, middle-class life and feels comfortable with the people of the town. When one evening they come upon a night club featuring a brother-sister transvestite act-- each performer dressing as the other gender--they are stimulated as they had not been for years, invite the couple to a hotel as a foursome, and later induce the young man, Loic (Stanislas Merhar) to board with them in their home. Though Nicole gives in to her passion for the drifter, Jean- Marie is reluctant to throw him out, though unaware of his own unconscious desire for the handsome visitor.
"Dry Cleaning" is talky, as French movies are wont to be, but a powerful piece of debut acting by the pale but charismatic Stanislas Merhar draws us into the family troubles. We empathize with all parties rather than to condemn Nicole for her abandon or Loic for his seductions. The threesome seem doomed like characters in a Greek tragedy to rush headlong into a sexually-driven catastrophe. By successfully creating an original twist in the destructive- outsider motif, director Anne Fontaine turns out an engrossing melodrama.
Not Rated. Running Time: 97 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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