Vénus beauté (institut) (1999)

Director:

Tonie Marshall

Writers:

Tonie Marshall (screenplay) &
Tonie Marshall (dialogue) ...

Release Date:

3 February 1999 (France)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Welcome to the Venus Beauty Institute where love, innocence and sex are a sight to behold.

Plot:

Employees of a beauty parlor in search of love and happiness.

Plot Keywords:

Massage | Christmas | New Year's Eve | Mad Love | Electrolysis

Awards:

8 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Nathalie Baye	...	Angèle Piana
Bulle Ogier	...	Madame Nadine, la patronne
Samuel Le Bihan	...	Antoine DuMont
Jacques Bonnaffé	...	Jacques
Mathilde Seigner	...	Samantha
Audrey Tautou	...	Marie
Robert Hossein	...	L'aviateur
Marie Rivière	...	La cliente aux bottines fourées
Edith Scob	...	La cliente aux taches sur les mains
Hélène Fillières	...	La fiancée d'Antoine (as Hélène Filières)
Brigitte Roüan	...	Madame Marianne
Claire Nebout	...	La cliente exhibitioniste
Micheline Presle	...	Tante Maryse
Emmanuelle Riva	...	Tante Lyda
Elli Medeiros	...	Mlle Evelyne

Also Known As:

Vénus institut (France) (working title)
Venus Beauty Institute (USA) (literal English title)
Venus Beauty Salon (UK)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality/nudity and language.

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Canada:14A | France:U | Germany:12 | Singapore:M18 | Spain:13 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Agat Films & Cie

Quotes:

Angele: When you smile I find you handsome.
Jacques: That's because you know my soul.

Movie Connections:

Followed by "Vénus & Apollon" (2005)

Soundtrack:

Rilax No2

Very pink

This stars Nathalie Baye, not Audrey Tautou, of Amélie (2001) fame. (She has a supporting role.) Baye is Angèle, a 40-year-old Parisian beautician who has loved and lost a few too many times. Indeed, as the film opens we (and Samuel Le Bihan as Antoine) watch and hear her being dumped once again. Well, she is careless with men. She is perhaps too "easy." She picks up men, the wrong ones. She is aggressive in her desire. And now she has become cynical. All she wants now are one-nights stands, no more love, no more unbreak my heart. Love is too painful.

So when Antoine falls in love with her at something like first sight (I do have a weakness for love at first sight: it is so, so daring, and so, shall we say, unpredictable) she rejects him out of hand even though he is a vital and handsome artist, confident and winning. What IS her problem? But he pursues her even though he is engaged to another (Hélène Fillières). And when she gets drunk and wants some casual sex with him, he says no. He wants her fully in control of her faculties.

So this is a romantic comedy of sorts centered around a beauty parlor. However any resemblance to Hollywood movies in the same genre (Shampoo (1975) and Hairspray (1988) somehow come to mind) is purely coincidental. Here the salon is brightly and colorfully lit with a tinker bell as the door opens, and the clientele are eclectic to say the least: an exhibitionist who arrives in a raincoat and nothing else; a rich old man lusting after Tautou; a woman with oozing pimples on her...(never mind)...etc.

What makes this work so well is a completely winning performance by Baye, sharp direction by Toni Marshall, and a kind of quirky and blunt realism that eschews all cliché. Tautou fans will be disappointed in her modest part, but she is just adorable in that role. The voyeur scene in which she is willingly seduced by the rich old guy may raise your libido or your envy depending on where you're coming from. Ha!

See this for Nathalie Baye who gives the performance of a lifetime, simultaneously subtle and strong, vulnerable and willful. She makes us identify with her character and she makes us wish her love.