A newly hired maid for a rich countryside family befriends a post-office clerk who encourages her to rebel against her employers.
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Title: La Cérémonie (1995)
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9 wins & 11 nominations.
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Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Isabelle Huppert | ... | Jeanne la postière | |
| Sandrine Bonnaire | ... | Sophie la bonne | |
| Jean-Pierre Cassel | ... | Georges Lelievre | |
| Jacqueline Bisset | ... | Catherine Lelievre | |
| Virginie Ledoyen | ... | Melinda | |
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Valentin Merlet | ... | Gilles |
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Julien Rochefort | ... | Jeremie |
| Dominique Frot | ... | Madame Lantier | |
| Jean-François Perrier | ... | Priest | |
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Ludovic Brillant | ||
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Claire Chiron | ||
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Claire-Marie Dentraygues | ||
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Jean-Pierre Descheix | ||
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Penny Fairclough | ||
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Alain Françoise | ||
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Plot Summary
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Storyline
The upper-class owner of a gallery, Catherine Lelievre, hires the efficient and quiet maid Sophie to work in the family manor in the French countryside. Her husband Georges Lelievre, who is an opera lover, her daughter Melinda and her teenage son Gilles welcome Sophie and appreciate her work. Sophie soon befriends the postmistress Jeanne, who is a bad egg and encourages Sophie to rebel against her employers, but the maid stays submissive. However, Sophie is ashamed of a secret and feels uncomfortable in many situations, finding a way to hide her secret. When Georges tells Sophie that he does not want Jeanne in his house, Sophie stands up to him. Melinda discovers her secret and Sophie blackmails her, but Melinda tells her parents what happened. Georges fires Sophie and she returns to the house later with Jeanne on the rampage. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Trivia
The author Ruth Rendell has said that Claude Chabrol's version of her novel "A Judgement in Stone" is one of the few film adaptations of her work that she is happy with. See more »Quotes
Georges Lelievre: [referring, respectively, to Sophie the illiterate maid and Jeanne the nosy postal clerk] What a pair: one can't read at all, and the other reads our mail.See more »
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Details
Language:
FrenchRelease Date:
20 December 1996 (USA) See more »Also Known As:
La Cérémonie See more »Edit
Box Office
Gross USA:
$873,196Cumulative Worldwide Gross:
$873,196Company Credits
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Based on Ruth Rendell's Judgment in Stone, French auteur Claude Charbol transplanted this quintessentially English thriller about class and guilt to France, where he can fire more bullets at his favorite target - the French bourgeoisie. Without giving too much away, the story unfolds at a slow pace to reveal the class divisions and complex psychological issues that drive the characters' motivations. Centring on an illiterate maid, Sophie, who goes to desperate lengths to hide her "disability" from her employers, the wealthy Lelievre family, she eventually strikes a bond with the local postmistress who has mysterious grudge against her friend's employers. This film provided Chabrol with plenty of opportunities to criticize the disaffected bonhomie of the Levlievre family, but at times his presentation of some members of the Levlievres actually enlists our sympathy and therefore strikes a blow to the validity of his critique of French bourgeoisie values. Perhaps this was his intent to create more ambiguity than most psychological thrillers in this genre would allow. It's worth watching for the climax alone which has a delicious twist worthy of a mass-market Hollywood sequel.