A staid Frenchman has his life turned upside down by a handful of Spanish maids in The Women on the 6th Floor.
This is an endearing little tale about finding joy in life, but as it concerns giving up money and influence for genuine happiness, it must of course be set in the past. The story takes place in the '60s in Paris.
Mr. Joubert (Fabrice Luchini) is a stockbroker, just like his father and his grandfather before him. He lives in the house where he grew up; his wife (Sandrine Kimberlain) is an ineffectual snob, his children are spoiled and his old family maid intimidates the heck out of him.
When that maid quits, his wife is informed by her friends that Spanish maids are the new 'it' help to hire. She goes reluctantly the Catholic Church where the Spanish working women hang out, and there she encounters Maria (Natalia Verbeke), a young domestic. She hires Maria and leaves her to cope with the mess that has built up since the old maid quit, but in a Mary Poppins-like scene of singing and cleaning, Maria calls in all her peeps in the maid business and they quickly turn the Joubert apartment back into a palace.
Maria is beautiful, hard-working and capable of making perfect soft-boiled eggs for Mr. Joubert. He is immediately attracted to her.
While carrying hat boxes up to the family storage space on the sixth floor, Mr. Joubert sees, for the first time in a long time, the maids' quarters for all the women who work in the building. They are shocking. The rooms are small, with no running water, and the toilet is a disgrace. Mr. Joubert calls a plumber. The maids declare him their hero.
Then another maid needs to borrow a phone, and another needs a place to live, and Mr. Joubert continues to be their problem-solver. The Spanish women adore him. They kiss him with genuine affection and they cook for him.
It gives him a new lease on life. At the same time, he's falling in love with Maria. To be anywhere in her vicinity, he starts going to Sunday mass again; he also starts to learn to speak Spanish.
The usual obstacles are presented to keep Mr. Joubert and Maria apart, but The Women on the 6th Floor is a relentlessly cheerful little tale and you can be quite sure early on that a happy ending is in store. It's a fantasy, this story; it's like The Help for French people, and with the working women seen through the eyes of the ruling class, yet again.
The saving grace of The Women on the 6th Floor is that Mr. Joubert decides to live in Maria's world rather than 'elevating' her and placing her in his.
It's a cute little story, provided you don't look too closely, and it has a gentle romantic spirit alongside the comedy. Oh, those noble working women.
The idea that Mr. Joubert might be imposing on Maria -- who already cooks, cleans, does the laundry, organizes the household and ministers to him when he's sick -- by wanting more of her time and affection, isn't really examined. Maybe that's a little joke from the filmmaker about marriage.
