KANW

Website Links

Description

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: Americans put a lot of stock in being likable. Pollsters take surveys of the president's likability. Test screenings check whether we like the characters in movies. And when a literary novelist like Claire Messud mocks the notion that fictional characters should be someone we'd like to be friends, writers of popular fiction attack her for snootiness. You rarely find such disputes in France, which finds our fetish of likability charmingly simple - rather like our shock at politicians committing adultery.

While the movie centers on one woman's personal struggle, it also captures a key moment in feminist history. Violette gets to know Beauvoir as the latter is working on her landmark book, The Second Sex , and even as Violette is deeply smitten, Beauvoir sees her less as an equal than as a kind of wildly exotic co-conspirator against male power and privilege. Without ever feeling friendship, let alone love for her protégé — in truth, La Grande Simone's not very likable herself — the principled Beauvoir is dedicated to supporting Violette with advice, scolding, money, time.

Products & services

Similar companies nearby