Quelques jours avec moi

Quelques jours avec moi sur Comme Au Cinema

'Quelques jous avec moi' is a film about people in different social stratas, with different ideals or at least they think so and how they meet and blend almost perfectly.

It's also a film about lack of responsibility, the thought that you can buy everything and everyone with money, the fact that you almost can.

The main characters are 'Martial Pasquier' (Daniel Auteuil), his mother 'Madame Pasquier' (Danielle Darrieux), 'monsieur and madame Fonfrin' (Jean-Pierre Marielle and Dominique Lavanant), their housemaid Francine (Sandrine Bonnaire), her boyfriend Fernand (Vincent Lindon) and their friends among whom we see Georgette (Dominique Blanc).
Martial's mother is the proprietor of a chain of supermarkets and as her son has spent some years in a mental hospital(!) because he was seen as pathologically indolent, she now wants him to get started in her firm.
He is assigned to visit a couple of cities where their supermarkets are situated and in doing so he finds that one manager (monsieur Fonfrin) has taken a 'loan' from the cash desks whereby the latter prepare himself to be discharged.
However Martial let him stay but take advantage of the situation and let himself be invited to their home and there he meets Francine and falls in love, or does he?
Martial invites her to dine with him but this by telling her that he is throwing a party and that he wants her to work for him that night.
The Fonfrins - not least madame - are not found of this but when Francine arrives she finds that the only guest is her.
Martial proposes that she stay with her and leave the work at the Fonfrin's place, something that makes Francine wonder why. Obviously Martial is in need of company and maybe some physical love, or is it more to it?
He buys her new clothes and supports her in every way. At the beginning she questions this arrangement but gradually she accepts it and get accustomed to this life.
Fernand - Francines boyfriend - becomes aware of this but as Martial arranges with a job for the unemployed Fernand, at the supermarket, he accepts this and Martial's friendship.
Martial now get to meet some of Francine's and Fernand's friends, more or less criminal individuals but with a good heart.
Martial also arranges with a party for them, the Fonfrin's, a sister to Francine with her fiancée who is a policeman and during the night these different characters are getting more and more acquainted, not least through the influence of Champagne!
In the shadows lurks Rocky, a tough figure who's interested in Francine and when Martial is fooled to go back to his mother as she is very 'ill', Rocky takes his chance and Francine doesn't say no.
Martial's mother is not ill at all, this was just an excuse to get him back to the office and sort things out.
Francine starts to work in the little café Rocky runs but ther relationship is full of violence.
Fernand is also jealous and this shows to be dangerous in the end when he takes the step over the line, using violence.

On the whole this is a rather well structured film although the first two thirds are better than the last third, where the director - Claude Sautet - seem to have lost the apetite for creating an interesting end.
A lot of fine French actors and actressess as you can see and their acting is very good, creating different types of people with different styles, being challenged in their views on how 'the others' function as individuals.
One can say that this is a film about how dramatic changes in life can lead to another approach to life and people and also how it can unite people when they see what is hidden behind the mask.