This is an uplifting tale about friendship between two women — independent spirits before feminism came into vogue — who do not compete or threaten each other on any level.
During World War II, Madeleine's (Miou-Miou) young art school husband is accidentally shot by the Nazis. Lena (Isabelle Huppert) is liberated from a concentration camp by marrying Michel (Guy Marchand), a soldier who falls in love with her on first sight. They flee across the Alps to safety.
In 1952, the two women meet at a school function. Madeleine, who now has a son, is married to Costa (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a struggling hustler who can't find a job that suits him. Lena has two daughters, and Michel's auto repair business is doing very well. The two women strike up a friendship and find in each other those qualities lacking in their husbands.
Kury's new film has the same fluidity, light comic touches, and well-delineated character portraits of her two earlier works, Peppermint Soda and Cocktail Molotov. She draws out mature, rounded and thoroughly satisfying performances from Miou-Miou and Isabelle Huppert. When the two leave their husbands and strike out for an unknown future together, we wish them well. They are feminist pioneers.