MOVIE REVIEW: MAMA, THERE'S A MAN IN YOUR BED 1988 (French working title, Romauld et Julliette)
I love foreign film. People across the pond are not afraid to experiment with different ideas. This movie has a very original concept.
Romauld (French movie star Daniel Auteil) is the CEO of a yogurt company. He is on top of the world...a great job, a beautiful wife AND girlfriend, and a really cool best friend, what more could a man ask for? His world starts to unravel when the press reports that people are becoming ill by eating his company's product. He is terminated from his job because of this. Romauld sneaks into his office to figure out who would want to sabotage him. While snooping around the office he meets Julliette(Firmine Richard), a Black cleaning woman who works after business hours in the building. This woman has worked in the building for years but Romauld was so self-absorbed, he never noticed her before. Juliette is aware of the plots to sabotage Romauld. She sits him down and spills the beans. Not only was his job at stake, his wife has been cheating on him and someone he knows very well has been embezzling money from the company. Juliette agrees to help Romauld land on his feet and a partnership is formed between the two. Romauld moves out of his lavish home and into Juliette's tiny, shabby apartment..i.e. the Projects as we call them in US. Juliette shares the apartment with her five children, all of whom have different fathers. Juliette has her own set of problems. Her oldest son is facing prison time and the fathers of the children are not doing much to help her out. Awkward moments ensue when the kids cuddle up with the White stranger in mom's bed. As they go on a quest to figure out who's out to get Roumauld..SURPRISE...they fall in love. Now the only way I can describe this love affair is for you to imagine Mel Gibson (young, hot Mel) with Esther Rolle(Florida) from Good Times. The lovemaking scene is a sight to be seen! I loved the two characters of this film. Juliette was a loving, caring, understanding woman who had been dealt a bad hand of cards in life. Romauld is a self-centered, pompous ass who learns many valuable lessons from someone whom he would've never thought twice about had he not stood to lose everything he worked hard for. No spoilers from me y'all..you'll have to hunt high and low for this one.
Cute date movie here! The ending is predictable but aren't most of them? I believe the writer's intention for this film was to show that love can defy class, color, and general standards of beauty. This film is very rare and hard to find as it was never reformatted for DVD. I actually own this on videotape. At one point there was talk of remaking this film with Richard Dreyfuss in the lead role....thank goodness they didn't. Hollywood would have casted a thinner, younger, and lighter-skinned actress for the role of Juliette. That would have defeated the purpose of the message. This is a French film with subtitles. I would suggest maybe trying your local Hollywood or Blockbuster video or your public library for this film. Amazon also carries it but most are used copies with some costing as much as $69.99!
VERDICT: 3 Soul Claps
Labels: Movie Reviews
This entry was posted
on Friday, September 01, 2006 at 2:02 AM.
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