The Women on the 6th Floor

Movie: The Women on the 6^th Floor

Genre: drama

Synopsis:  This is a French film set in Paris with English subtitles.  Jean-Louis Joubert (Fabrice Luchini) is the wealthy head of an investment firm founded by his father (or perhaps it was his grandfather).  His wife, Suzanne (Sandrine Kiberlain) is a bit of a socialite who ‘exhausts’ herself with social funcitons, charities and managing the family maid.  Jean-Louis owns the six-story apartment building in which they live.  The sixth floor consists of a bunch of small rooms and a single bathroom.  This is a floor occupied by a large number of maids from Spain.  They are all poor and live in pretty lousy conditions.  Jean-Louis has a comfortable life, but not a happy life.  The new family maid lives on this floor.  One day he has his eyes opened to the squalor the maids on the sixth floor live in.  A simple, for him, act of kindness brings great relief to one of them. Jean-Louis discovers that hanging out with the maids brings him happiness.  The maids discover that, although rich, Jean-Louis is a very decent fellow.  When his wife decides that Jean-Louis must be fooling around – she makes him move out – so he moves into a room on the sixth floor and finds happiness.

My two cents: I loved this movie.  You have this rich fellow who should have been on top of the world, but is actually quite unhappy with his life.  He discovers that the poor maids on the 6^th floor are much happier in their lives than he is.  I really enjoyed watching how he became a part of the maids’ lives and found such happiness living in a single room among them.

[198]