User Reviews

Moshe Mizrahi's Les stances a Sophie falls a little short of feminist classic status, but it's a spikily enjoyable work from start to finish, excellently drawing on Bernadette Lafont's distinctive crossing of slightly removed amusement with unerring seriousness of purpose. She plays Celine, a low-overhead arty type, who in the film's opening stretch meets and sort of falls for businessman Philippe, accepting his marriage proposal in part because of what she calls "gravitation." She's hardly suited to the world he inhabits (a scene early in their marriage has him trying to drum the details of the coming evening's social commitment into her head while she's entirely preoccupied with trying to remember the previous night's dream), but benefits from her friendship with Julia (Bulle Ogier), wife of Philippe's best friend Jean-Pierre, who shows her some of the rich woman ropes (which, in one of the film's less progressive notions, largely seem to involve buying clothes); in turn, Celine's greater appetite for sex seems to help Julia out of her "semi-frigid" state, and the two eventually start collaborating on a theory-informed study of gender relations. But the film thwarts any expectations of a sexual free-for-all: in particular, Celine's response to a pass that Philippe makes on her is withering, and the exact nature of her close relationship with Philippe's sister is left unclear. Mizrahi has some fun with masculine car obsessions and their dim view of female drivers, until the joke turns bitterly sour, leading to an ending that delivers the expected note of liberation and self-determination while weaving in some intriguing notes of regret, abiding affection and male desolation. The film's reputation is much bolstered (in some quarters entirely constituted by) the score by The Art Ensemble of Chicago, its only such feature-length assignment; their work soars and pivots and counterpoints, bolstering the sense of investigative complexity.