The Midwife is a glossy, sentimental drama from French writer-director Martin Provost. It’s elegantly poised, sometimes moving and a little pedestrian. But this otherwise unremarkable film is graced with greatness in the form of a full-blooded central turn by Catherine Deneuve.
As Béatrice, a penniless retiree living beyond her means in a borrowed flat in Paris, she is magnificent: it’s a performance of grand stately gestures and barrelling emotional power, and it provides good evidence for why Deneuve, at 73, is still French cinema’s leading star.
All credit to her co-star Catherine Frot for managing not to be overshadowed by Deneuve. Frot, in fact, plays the title character, a 49-year-old midwife called Claire in charge of a maternity clinic in a small town just outside of Paris. She’s a reserved, aloof figure, whose well-ordered existence is given a shock when, after years of silence, Béatrice phones her out of the blue.
Claire arranges to meet Béatrice in Paris, and there’s an absorbing intrigue to these early scenes. Béatrice is warm and familiar with Claire but the younger woman is stand-offish, frosty to the point of hostility. Provost is in no rush to explain the reason for this strained atmosphere, preferring instead to stand back in admiration as his two actresses circle one another.
When the revelation comes, it does so in increments. Béatrice was the mistress of Claire’s father, a famous swimmer in the 1970s. Béatrice left him, and though she claims that he remained her greatest love, she never got back in contact. What she doesn’t know – and what Claire tells her in a furious hiss – is that this man committed suicide not long afterwards, devastated by Béatrice’s departure. And as if that’s not enough to take in, Béatrice has a disclosure: she has terminal cancer.
