rosie-brocklehurst Why does this film lift my spirits when I am in the lowest of moods? It always does, and has done so for 25 years. I watch it at least once a year. Daniel Auteuil has the most expressive face. Firmine Richard, an untried ingenue when she made this, just lights up the room when she smiles. (Auteuil was brilliant as Ugolin, the dim innocent peasant of those masterpieces of French cinema - Jean De Florette and Manon Des Sources, based on the Pagnol novels.) Auteuil's face is just as expressive in his role as the duped boss in this fast moving light hearted farce, where he plays the blinkered and pompous chief executive of a multi-national yoghurt producer who develops an unlikely relationship with Juliette, the office cleaner. She is a woman raising 5 children single handedly in a dump of a flat, while working nights and surviving on minimum wages and less sleep. Big, black and beautiful and totally unlike Romuald's chic, over-indulged adulterous wife, Juliette represents woman with all her emotional strength and practical virtue. The contrasts are multiple. Juliette is poor. He is rich. She is French African and black. He is slightly built and white. She is working class. He is Bourgeois. He is blind to the world he inhabits and the scoundrels who surround him. She is good, strong, independent minded and wise. This is the sweetest of films that has the extraordinary ability to reach out and give you a hug.

theeyeshaveit469 This movie is a gem! It is the story of Juliette, a perfectly ordinary cleaning woman who works in the large corporate office of a yogurt company, and Romuald, the president of same. He takes no notice of her, he takes no notice of anyone until several plots to wrest his company away from him all hit at the same time. He is lost, no one to turn to and no one to trust when he discovers Juliette. As the cleaning woman, no one pays any attention to her, so they say and do incriminating things in front of her that she is smart enough to catch on to and use to help her helpless and hapless boss.I was very happy when I finally managed to get the DVD and a second viewing was no less enjoyable than the first, many years before. One of my favorite rom coms ever.

gregorybnyc I don't know how I came across this film, but I think it was because of Daniel Auteuil, an actor I had not encountered before I first saw this film in the early 90s. I've since bought the video and have watched it many times. The sweet story of a myopic French executive and his black office cleaning lady is not at all racist as someone previously posted here. And it's refreshing to see a love story starring a woman with a Junoesque figure. Fermine Richard is a splendid, sexy presence, and the scene where her son is let out of prison and her greeting to him is hilarious. Daniel Auteuil, as the clueless executive whose eyes are finally opened is a sensational actor and he's actually handsome in this film. Usually he's submerged in some character, and you forget that he can be an effortless leading man. The children--his and hers--are delightful, as is Romuald's ex-wife and bumbling underlings who seek to oust Romuald from his position as the CEO of a successful yogurt company, play their absurd parts with winks and nods.Again it is the masterly hand of Coline Sereau who lets this warm comedy unfold with grace and sweetness that make for a delightful time. I had heard the film was optioned for an American version with Richard Dreyfus in the part of Romauld. Sounds awful. Watch the masterly original instead!

Darguz This is a very sweet film. While it has its humorous moments, I wouldn't really bill it as a comedy, but perhaps it's funnier if you're French. But I really loved the characters and the story. Firmine Richard is a real beauty (I'm going to look up more of her films), and I too fell in love with Juliette. I saw "Le Placard" last week, which was my first exposure to Daniel Auteuil; I didn't know he was in this film until I started watching it. There are a lot of great French actors that Americans are too unaware of. Expand your horizons folks -- watch foreign films. There are some real gems out there. Go to your library and check out a few.Now, this 10-line-minimum rule is really starting to get annoying. I think my comment above is quite adequate, but the system still won't allow me to submit it. You folks really need to change that.