Movie – Potiche

I’ve been looking for an excuse to go to the Electric for the whole two years I’ve been in Birmingham. With a long-time fully paid-up Cineworld membership it’s more than a little extravagant, so I’ve been waiting to watch a classic movie. Or for something I missed because it was in the mainstream cinema for just a week.So finally I get to the Electric to watch Potiche and I’m delighted to find is not extortionately priced as I expected, not that I have any knowledge of what (UK) cinema tickets cost. The UK’s oldest cinema reminds me of the Friday afternoons I spent at Angelika cinema in New York in that we can take coffee and cake into the screening. You gotta love a cinema you can do that in!I would have preferred a big slice of Victoria Sandwich or a real hot pretzel with a take-out cup of coffee rather than the little bowl of pretzels and cup and saucer but you don’t get waitress service in Cineworld so it’s all good!The French film, about the ‘trophy wife’ taking over her husband’s umbrella factory after he falls ill, is as funny as the trailer suggests. Catherine Deneuve in the title role is superb opposite her one time dalliance, now the Mayor, played farcically well by Gérard Depardieu. The best character though is the 1970s; this film is set c1978 and the sexism is shown to fantastic comic affect with the clothes and music making a perfect supporting cast. I love disco and so adore the scene from the trailer where the trophy wife and mayor do a ‘Saturday Night Fever’ on the dance floor and the film makes me want to wear patterned chiffon blouses with huge scarf ties. As well as dealing with the union strikes at the French factory (nothing changes there then) and getting the workers back to work, our heroine also has two grown up children, an equally bored housewife daughter and a son that’s obviously gay to us sometime before he admits it.The French ‘Made in Dagenham’ - with industrial strength hairspray. A teeny bit too long but utterly watchable.8/10Smile factor 9/10[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1OH341kK3I&w=560&h=349]