‘Two Women’ Review: From Quebec Comes a Cringy Remake of a 1970 Sex Romp

variety.com:

Alissa Simon Film Critic What is it with 30-something Quebecoise filmmakers and their interest in exploring the tired porn trope of unsatisfied wives finding their sexual needs met by hot handymen?

In 2023, Monia Chokri’s OK dramedy “The Nature of Love” was selected for Cannes and even won a César for best foreign film. Now, helmer Chloé Robichaud (“Sara Prefers to Run”) enters the Sundance World Dramatic competition with “Two Women,” a cringy, unconvincing remake of a cult 1970 Québec sex romp, “Deux femmes en or.” Screenwriter-producer Catherine Léger earlier adapted the material into a successful stageplay, but the theater version seems to have included some bracing irony, a quality sorely missing from this earnest, naturalistic misfire.

The best that can be said for Robichaud’s film is that her two leads, Karine Gonthier-Hyndman and Laurence Leboeuf, give committed performances The action mostly takes place in an ugly, suburban Montreal eco-housing coop, where the cramped interior spaces scream confinement.

Translator Florence (Gonthier-Hyndman) and new mother Violette (Leboeuf) are neighbors. For both of them, maternity seems to have brought some mental health issues.