How to be a Good Wife (2020) Martin Provost
Paulette has spent her life teaching young women how to be good wives. Then her own life falls apart.
This will change how you see what a feminist looks like. How to Be a Good Wife (2020) takes place in the late 60s when there were still finishing schools that taught young ladies how to run a house and be a good wife. Though it is owned by her husband’s family, Paulette Van der Beck, played by Juliette Binoche, is a strict but savvy instructor. Helped by her sister-in-law, Gilberte and a nun, Marie-Therese. Classes in cooking, cleaning, child care, and embroidery all the skills needed to stay at home. When her husband chokes on his final meal, she finds out that their life was a sham, and the school is bankrupt. She has to grow and change in ways that she never expected and finds that the lessons she used to believe in may be getting outdated. It’s an awakening for her and her students.
If you like films about women discovering that the life they were handed may not be the life they want, try A Room with a View next. Lucy Honeychurch lives in a very different time, but she also has to decide how much of the expected path she is actually willing to follow. Read the review →
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