French Cheese

IF YOU DON'T, I WILL (2015) (B-minus) - Two great actors -- Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric -- make this drama about a failed marriage watchable for 102 minutes. The glum wife, Pomme, gets little energy back from her husband, Pierre, who doesn't even try to seem interested in continuing the relationship.

On a hike in the woods, Pomme sends Pierre home alone, and she roughs it on her own. This isn't so much a journey of self-actualization as a meditative opportunity to leech some poisons out of one's system. Amalric and Devos could play these roles in their sleep, and they almost do. Like she usually does, Devos, with her puppy-dog eyes and an exaggerated slump of the shoulders, rescues the script and makes the movie her own.

Quirky bits give the proceedings an occasional jolt, such as when Pierre visits his son for a heart-to-heart and must sit on a corner of the bed while the son's girlfriend sleeps naked under the covers inches away. And the ending hits the right note.

MY PIECE OF THE PIE (2011) (C+) - Pulp melodrama with a fairly far-fetched idea almost works thanks to zippy direction from Cedric Klapisch and a spirited lead performance from Karin Viard ("Polisse") as a laid-off factory worker who takes a job cleaning and nannying for a high-powered financier. And wouldn't you know it, he's the renegade trader who executed the scheme to take over her company and close up the shop.

Viard, in her mid-40s, nails the angst of a struggling single mom, named France, trying to fend for her family. She reluctantly abandons her fellow aggrieved workers to go to paris and work for asshole Steve (Gilles Lellouche), who not only needs a cleaning lady but -- after his ex drops off their 5-year-old son on her way to a monthlong vacation -- also a nanny ASAP. The money, of course, is too good for France to pass up, even though it means more time away from her kids, who are looked after by her sister.

Steve soon grows dependent on his new charge, and an underlying spark of romance also flickers, even though France can see that he treats the models that he dates like disposable income. (Marine Vacth ("Young & Beautiful") plays his most pathetic victim.) Steve is insufferable, and it's a stretch to tolerate the aptly named France as the giant symbol of the working class. The final reel turns into a suspense-thriller plot to kidnap Steve's son. It's difficult to care for Steve or the kid, and Viard's charm goes only so far.