Barbara Laage essays the title role in Zoe. Our heroine's adventures begin when she catches the eye of a big-city playboy named Arthur (Michel Auclair), who is attracted not only to Zoe's beauty, but by her insistence upon telling nothing but the whole truth. This trait causes no end of comic complications when Zoe moves into the palatial home of Arthur's family. The limit comes when Zoe botches a big business deal formulated by Arthur's not-altogether-honest father (Louis Seigner). Zoe is based on a stage farce by Jean Marsan.
Acting
Barbara Laage's deadpan delivery weaponizes sincerity.
Writing
Stage-to-screen farce keeps every lie spinning.
Director
Charles Brabant
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Barbara Laage was a dancer before acting; her physical comedy in the dinner scenes is pure unscripted elegance.
1954 France saw this as postwar class satire — the nouveau riche Delay family represented everything the old guard feared.
FR
