One Woman or Two () is a 1985 French screwball romantic comedy film directed by , who co-wrote the screenplay with Élisabeth Rappeneau. It stars Gérard Depardieu, Sigourney Weaver, Ruth Westheimer and Michel Aumont.Films and Filming, Issues 411-423, 1989.
The film is a rework of the 1938 American screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
Plot
Shy paleontologist/archaeologist (Gérard Depardieu) makes an archeological find of the fossil remains of the first, two-million-year-old, French woman, whom he calls Laura.Harrington, Richard (March 2, 1987). "'One Woman or Two' (PG-13)", The Washington Post.R. R. Bowker (1992). Bowker's Complete Video Directory, Volumes 1–4.Scheuer, Steven H. (1989). Movies on TV and Video Cassette; 1989-1990Maltin, Leonard (2013). Leonard Maltin's 2014 Movie Guide He is approached and conned by a crass and greedy American model and Madison Avenue advertising executive (Sigourney Weaver), masquerading as a charity organisation executive in order to use the woman for her own perfume advertising campaign.
Later the real charity organisation executive, ditzy rich American patroness of the sciences (Ruth Westheimer, in her feature film debut) turns up ... it all develops from there.The Family Guide to Movies and Videos, Office for Film and Broadcasting, Department of Communications, United States Catholic Conference, 1995.The Blockbuster Entertainment Guide to Movies and Videos, 1999 Edition.
Cast Gérard Depardieu as Julien Chayssac Sigourney Weaver as Jessica Fitzgerald Ruth Westheimer as Mrs. Heffner Michel Aumont as Pierre Carrière Zabou Breitman as Constance Michaux Tannis Vallely as Zoé
Most of the dialogue in the film is in French, including that of Weaver (an American) and Westheimer (originally from Germany). This would not have been difficult for Westheimer, who had lived in Switzerland and France and had studied and taught at the Sorbonne in the 1950s.
Production The film was shot in France (much of it in Paris) and New York City. French paleontologist Yves Coppens advised on the film.Day, David Howard (1997). A Treasure Hard to Attain; Images of Archaeology in Popular Film, with a Filmography Scenes were also shot in Sisteron, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department.
Reception The film was unsuccessful at the French box-office.Elsa Zimmerman, Gérard Depardieu. Une vie libre, City éditions, 2013 ISBN 978-2-8246-0301-8, pp. 116-117
Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Roger Ebert wrote of this film in a half star review, "Add it all up, and what you've got here is a waste of good electricity. I'm not talking about the electricity between the actors. I'm talking about the current to the projector." In 2005 he included it on his most-hated films list.
Richard Harrington, writing for The Washington Post said: "it's funny enough, and genial in the way French comedy tends to be."
References
External links
A Woman or Two, in the Time Out film guide