Based on the true story of the family behind the L'Oreal Cosmetics Empire The Richest Woman Alive features a strong screenplay and excellent performances in the main roles by Isabelle Huppert and Laurent Lafitte. Warmly recommended.
Marianne Farrère (Isabelle Huppert) a capable businesswoman in her 70s is at the helm a leading multinational cosmetics empire based in France which she inherited from her parents and expanded with great success. This makes her one of the richest women in the world. Her husband Guy (André Marcon) supports Marianne in a quiet manner both in business and family matters keeping an eye on the continuity of the family's control and succession in running the enterprise. Marianne is disappointed in her daughter Frédérique (Marina Fois). Devoted to her father Guy, Frédérique has become a housewife with occasional projects in charity and publishing and married a Jewish man, a risk-averse safe par of hands in family and business matters. Jerome (Raphaël Personnaz) an ex-army man in his late 30s, the butler to Marianne and Guy, is efficient and loyal to the family and especially close to Guy.
When the flamboyant young gay photographer Pierre-Alain Fantin (Laurent Lafitte) comes to take photographs for an image lifting feature on Marianne in the aptly named fashion and people magazine "Selfish" Marianne becomes greatly amused and infatuated. Willingly she allows his turns him and his gregarious personality bring trendiness and disorder into her bourgeois home and gradually gives him ever greater access to her family life, greatly enjoying the flamboyancy with which he begins to dominate every scene in which he is present. She rewards him and keeps him close with extraordinary generosity of monetary gifts that start with millions and gradually increase.
Family members and the loyal family butler continue to accept what they see as Marianne's whim with outwardly displayed equanimity but as Marianne's gifts to the shameless Pierre-Alain add up and he starting to gain ever greater influence over Marianne's family and business affairs, Frédérique decides to make a stance against her mother to remove Pierre-Alain's influence and recover some of the financial benefits her mother's generosity has poured out on him. Marianne and Pierre-Alain fight back while Guy helped by his trusted servant Jerome tries to preserve the family fortune and restore family unity without openly confronting Marianne.
This is French corporate and family drama with comedic traits not so loosely based on the true story of the Banier-Bettencourt affair that shook the French family behind the L'Oréal cosmetics empire and fortune. The screenplay with high-quality dialogues and the main actors make this film recommended viewing.
The high-quality screenplay (by Cédric Angers, Jacques Fieschi and director Thierry Klifa) holds a good balance between drama and humour. A strong acting ensemble makes this depiction of a nearly incredible story unfolding among the hardworking section of the French superrich believable. Predictable lives are being shaken up by the force of an eccentric domineering personality and a businesswoman who has found a taste of romance and adventure. Isabelle Huppert and Laurent Lafitte have chemistry and give outstanding performances. Warmly recommended.
