La galère (2007)

LA GALERE Winter 2007 To escape from the stress and tensions of their every day routine, four women in their late thirties, along with their seven children, decide to move in together for one year. Vero, Mimi, Claude and Isa are convinced that by sharing everything from the chores to all of their expenses, they can improve their comfort and quality of life while also strengthening their relationships with their partners, lovers and boyfriends: Yeah, right. Welcome to Vero's continuous whirlwind of a life. This disorganised mother of three (from three different fathers) is constantly running around with her cell phone and a coffee in one hand, a child in the other and a moody teen in the perpetual throes of some crisis always close by. In Claude's corner of the home we find a narcissistic mother always dressed to the nines in designer duds who prefers working on international development to actually taking care of her children or saving her crumbling marriage. Then there is Mimi, a lonely and desperate single woman in love with love who dreams of one day being whisked away by a prince in shining armour. As for Isabelle, this former attorney traded in her power suits for the matronly mantles of "a Politician's wife" and homemaker, but now finds herself desperately disillusioned and aching to emerge from her husband's shadow despite the perks, privileges and comforts of her social status. Four very different women in the same house - will they ever learn to live together? Will their children? Will they truly be able to make lasting and positive changes to their lives? La galere is the story of four friends who adore each other and who will constantly intervene and implicate themselves in each other's lives in order to gradually reinvent and rediscover themselves. Vero, Mimi, Claude and Isa will spy on each other, "bitch" at each other, help each other and, ultimately, they will destroy the myths surroundings the perfect mother, the perfect wife and the perfect family: it is a very contemporary portrait of today's modern woman.