In 2022, Quebec City made a bid to host the third season of The White Lotus. The hit HBO series equals the Olympics of sexy hijinks during prime time. If HBO finds that tropical locations like Hawaii, Sicily, and winning season three bidder Thailand necessitate a change of pace after three seasons of sunshine, then Two Women should convince the world that Canada’s snowy nether regions can bring the heat.
Two Women marks a terrifically rambunctious comedy from director Chloé Robichaud and writer Catherine Léger rouses a pair of neighbours from their suburban slumber. Violette (Laurence Leboeuf) struggles with an itch during her maternity leave. She tells her husband Benoît (Félix Moati) that she often hears a crow cawing ravenously during odd hours. She thinks it’s the sound of their neighbours having sex.
The walls of their trendy condo community seem paper thin. The horny cawing claws at Violette incessantly, making her hot under the collar and doubly restless over the fact that Benoît can’t quite scratch her itch these days. She broaches the subject with her neighbour Florence (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman) as casually as one asks for a cup of sugar. There’s no roundabout way to ask someone to stop having sex so loudly, is there, but Violette almost seems eager for advice.
The two women strike up an unlikely friendship as their mutual dissatisfaction with their sex lives unlocks a challenge. They validate each other’s desires and see reflections in each other. They can’t just blame themselves for their unhappiness: their husbands’ waning attention could fulfill their desires if reversed.
Two Woman delivers an offbeat sex farce as Violette and Florence decide to put their husbands’ absence to good use. A call to the exterminator in search of mice leads to a thorough search of a mattress top. A leaky pipe (self-inflicted) implores a deeper dive into the plumbing. The women quickly radiate with youthful vigour as they recognize their former selves as their willingness to explore yearnings reopens sensations old and new.
At the same time, their husbands don’t notice all the strange goings on since they’re off playing The White Lotus themselves. Benoît has a standing order with a young woman at a motel on the other side of town. Katherine’s husband David (Mani Soleymanlou) painstakingly resists the come-ons of their much-younger neighbour (Sophie Nélisse). Her apparent kink for daddy issues feeds David’s middle-aged fantasies, even if the relationship stays platonic.
The sexual escapes escalate as all four parties become more brazen—and reckless—in their pursuit of longing. Handyman after handyman visits the neighbouring units. Violette and Florence drolly become suburban legends, as fixer-uppers advise their friends how to get the best “tips.” The amusingly drab condominium becomes a source of sexual ecstasy as Violette and Florence capitalise on its Rear Window-like voyeurism. Large windows, let’s say, offer far more than natural light as breastfeeding and exhibitionism let neighbours, window-washers, and hydro-workers check out the goods.
Robichaud and Léger refreshingly don’t lay the blame on either party though. Two Woman explores the thrills and consequences of polyamory and monogamy alike. It considers infidelity from all angles, sharply and cleverly asking when an action becomes a cheat. It considers when one ultimately becomes unfaithful to oneself by denying happiness for the sake of a lifelong pact.
Robichaud (Days of Happiness) works wonderfully with cinematographer Sara Mishara (Viking) to make average and oversized bodies the objects of desire. Two Women embraces natural shapes and curves. It finds mundane eroticism in ugly-hot men, dad bods, and belly rolls. It’s a winning reminder that anyone with the flabbiest gut can be the sexy with the right outlook.
Leboeuf, Gonthier-Hyndman, Moati, and Soleymanlou fully commit to their performances, offering raw and vulnerable turns. Robichaud’s natural approach evokes the anxiety that comes in the years between young adulthood and middle-age. Two Women refreshingly reflects how we learn to accept the responsibilities of growing older, but crave the increasingly ephemeral pleasures lost too soon in our youth. This is a warm and relatable comedy—doubly so because it unfolds not in a five-star resort, but within the familiar comfort of one’s home.