This movie is not a romantic comedy. It is a story of two middle-aged women at crossroads. A few moments that are supposed to be funny are not played well. Either the screen play was not good and dialogs were not written well or the roles are not suitable for the two very well known actresses. Roschdy Zen is more convincing in his role, but cannot make it much more interesting to watch. If it is supposed to be ironic it is not easy to understand what the irony is about. The movie is shallow compared to a great number of French comedies from 1970-1980-ies. Moreover, in the past there was something thought-provoking in the French comedies with Richard or Belmondo. It is missing now.

Most English speakers are doubly disadvantaged when they watch French films. We don't understand the language, and we haven't had a strict French education, which ensures that most of the audience has been forced to get familiar with writers like Molière, la Fontaine, Beaumarchais, and Marivaux: all masters of a kind of dry, tart, ironic comedy we just don't have in English. 'The Chef's Wife' (the French title, which means 'We almost got to be friends,' is really on the mark) is in the main line of this tradition.

In a small but upscale country town, the wife of the chef at a fancy Michelin-starred restaurant is suffering mid-life career anxiety. She goes to a harried, fretful but dedicated occupational counselor for advice. So far so good; but both women are suffering from severe delusions about their real problems: the wife is an all-devouring co-dependent, the counselor (a divorcée) thinks she's a just-the-facts person, immune from emotional entanglements. Their collision, two black holes of need spiraling inward on each other, is the comic spine of the movie. At the focus of their orbits is the chef himself, a warm but uncommunicative man, who expresses his love in hors d'oeuvres and amuse-bouches, not in words.

The two women, played by veteran comédiennes with scores of films between them but working together for the first time, are utterly superb. The chef, played by an actor more usually seen with a pistol in his hand than a saucepan, is an ideal figure to engender deceptive fantasies. The rest of the cast, drawn from the seemingly bottomless well of superb French character actors, supports the principals with high honors. And the script, by actor/director Ann le Ny, is a sleek unobtrusive machine for producing awkward encounters and comic misunderstandings. This is French cinema with an accent aïgu: funny, even farcical, but never, never dumb.

This movie is basically about a love triangle. Nothing unique there, and yet the way it's done is clever, appealing, and not simplistic. What impressed me right away was the way the plot was set up. It was original and the action was not forced as happens in some movies. Two women meet in surprising circumstances: one of the actresses plays a life counselor who tries to help the other lead actress, whom she had thought was happy with her life. The counselor always tries to maintain her professionalism, yet circumstances force changes in their relationship, as well as her meeting the client's husband, and the plot develops from there.

There have been so many movies where food is a character, and so it is with this movie. Yet as with the setup I wrote about above, it's handled in a very "tasty," sensual way; again not unique, but very well done, and blends in with the plot and action very well.

At times the movie is a bit too much of a "chic flick" for me, and also annoying for me was one of the lead actresses frequently shaking her midsection to show off her breasts. Maybe not at the top of anyone's watch list, the movie is well worth watching.