Skip to content
Madame may boast Toni Collette (Wanderlust) and Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs) as its leads, Anne and Bob, a well-off American couple who are about to host a big dinner for lots of people, but the two that drew me into this are Rossy de Palma as Maria, and the always engaging Michael Smiley (Free Fire) as David.
The problem for Anne is that there’s only 13 coming to dinner, but you can’t have an odd number of seats at the dinner table, so Maria the maid is enlisted as the 14th guest.
On the way over, art dealer David gets a prediction in the taxi, which carries a selection of fortune cookie quotes, that he’ll meet a mysterious woman tonight. Even if you haven’t seen the trailer, you’ll soon see that he’s immediately drawn by Maria’s bountiful charms.
So, will love last? Will anyone spill the beans about Maria’s occupation? After all, Anne wants to keep it under wraps, otherwise everyone will know she lied about her additional guest!
Madame has great chemistry between Michael Smiley and Rossy de Palma, as well as Colette with the latter. Keitel, however, comes across more like a spare part as he’s only there to be the bane of Anne’s life, since he’s too old to perform, leaving her fruststrated, as well as being annoyed for the fact that her maid is getting more of the good times than she is!
At least, unlike for Anne, there’s still a lot of fun for the viewer!
Since the film is set in Paris, a lot of the credits are written in French, even though this is primarily an English language movie.
Madame has only been released on DVD with no Blu-ray release which is a great shame. I’ll just give a score for the movie since this is a very bare bones release with a static and silent menu – showing a picture of the cast, and there’s zero extras. The DVD picture is fine with no issues and the audio is alright as it’s mostly a dialogue piece with a smattering of score, but nothing to really shout about.
Subtitles are in English only and there’s a pitiful 7 chapters, the last of which is used for the closing credits.
Madame is released tomorrow on DVD.
Film: 7/10
Cert: 
Running time: 91 minutes
Year: 2018
Distributor: Studiocanal
Cat.no: OPTD4201R1
Released: September 17th 2018
Chapters: 7
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English with some French
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 2.35:1
Disc Format: DVD9
Director: Amanda Sthers
Producer: Cyril Colbeau-Justin
Screenplay: Amanda Sthers and Matthew Robbins
Music: Matthieu Gonet
Cast:
Maria: Rossy de Palma
David Morgan: Michael Smiley
Anne Fredericks: Toni Collette
Bob Fredericks: Harvey Keitel
Steven Fredericks: Tom Hughes
Hélène Bernard: Violaine Gillibert
Antoine Bernard: Stanislas Merhar
Mandy: Sue Cann
Josiane: Ariane Séguillon
Rose: Amélie Grace Zhurkin
Sean: James Foley
Toby: Brendan Patricks
Michael: Tim Fellingham
Fanny: Joséphine de La Baume
Marinette: Sonia Rolland
Jane Millerton: Ginnie Watson
Gilles: Noah Labastie
Fedor: Eric Zargniotti
Jacques: Alex Vizoreck
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.