Claire Nadeau Movies

A beleaguered housewife watches her dreams come true when her obnoxious husband dies, in actress-turned-director Isabelle Mergault's romantic comedy The Merry Widow (AKA Enfin veuve). For years, Anne-Marie Gratigny (Michele Laroque) has buckled beneath the weight of her condescending husband, Gilbert's (Wladimir Yordanoff) constant oppressiveness. An unrelenting boor, he belittles her, chides her, and torments her - until the day that he perishes in an automobile accident. Anne-Marie, of course, is thrilled by this turn of events. Among other things, it will give her the freedom to abscond with her extramarital lover, Leo (Jacques Gamblin), a builder of boats who is preparing to head off to China on business and to take Anne-Marie along. Unfortunately for Anne-Marie, these plans are dashed when her unwittingly intrusive family moves in to "console" her and upsets her relationship with Leo. More problematically, Anne-Marie finds that she can never quite bring herself to the point of confessing her true feelings about any of the tumultuous events that have happened. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

At $23 million, this sequel cost three times as much as the earlier Les Visiteurs (1993), France's second largest postwar success (with 13.6 million tickets sold). The follow-up features a voiceover summary of the first film while pages flip in an illuminated book. In the 1993 film, a magic potion launched 11th-century knight Godefroy de Montmirail (Jean Reno) and his loyal vassal Jacquouille la Fripouille (Christian Clavier) spinning through time to the modern-day French countryside where they found the Montmirail chateau converted into an upscale resort run by Jacquart (also played by Clavier), an innkeeper soon transported to the Middle Ages. The sequel opens with a prologue showing Jacquouille and Ginette (Marie-Anne Chazel) creating confusion in a contemporary supermarket. A stolen relic left in the 20th Century must be returned to the past, or Godefroy's marriage will be cursed. Jacquart faces his own problems -- wolves, angry peasants, torture, and burning at the stake. All the key characters flit back and forth between the 1990s and the past. In the present day, playboy Hubert de Montmirail (Reno) has been missing for 15 years, and his shrewish wife Cora (Claire Nadeau) finds the missing relic. When Godefroy turns up, he's naturally assumed to be the missing Hubert. Les Visiteurs II had the biggest opening day in French film history, breaking the record set by Men in Black and generating Gallic guffaws galore in a country where few films ever receive the sequel treatment. English language title The Corridors of Time: The Visitors II. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Almost a follow-up to director Claude Sautet's Un Coeur en Hiver (1992), Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud further explores repressed emotions and failed relationships. Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart), an attractive young woman, is six months behind in her rent and struggling with odd jobs, while her husband (Charles Berling) lies in bed reading newspapers and watching TV. Her friend Jacqueline introduces her to Pierre Arnaud (Michel Serrault), a retired judge and wealthy ex-businessman, who offers to settle Nelly's debt. She agrees and is later so disappointed by her husband's indifferent reaction that she leaves him. Arnaud asks her to be his secretary because he needs help in typing his memoirs. Though obviously attracted to her, he rarely expresses his emotions, and he suddenly erupts only when he finds out about Nelly's affair with his young publisher Vincent (Jean-Hugues Anglade). The film won Césars from the French Academy of Cinema for Best Director and Best Actor, although it lost Best Film to Mathieu Kassovitz's more innovative La haine. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

Luis Rego stars as a philandering husband who runs a concession stand in this uneven sex comedy. He is successful for years juggling his amorous adventures between his wife and mistress. When he falls for a sultry lounge singer with a sadomasochist streak, he takes on far more than he can handle. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

A traveling theater troupe is divided by the romantic unrest of several couples in this sometimes macabre and uneven comedy drama. Baptiste (Guy Marchand) is the troupe's director who finds his creativity has been drained and who is in the process of splitting with his actress-wife Sarah (Caroline Cellier). Baptiste becomes friends with novelty-shop owner Charlie (Michel Galabru) -- who is later hacked to death by his wife Germaine (Marie Duboise) before she ends her own life by slashing her wrists. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

This film chronicles the strange battle among a pair of beings from the sphere of the sun or moon, who take the form of women and fight over a young man in bars, hotels, and mystical power-spots. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi