NYJFF: Gorgeous! / Comme t'y es belle!

Last night was our first movie at this year's New York Jewish Film Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Gorgeous! / Comme t'y es belle! It was billed as the "Sephardic Sex in (sic) the City," But I saw very little that made this film Jewish, let alone Sephardic. Yes, the four main characters were Sephardic Jewish women, and they were seen celebrating Jewish holidays, but that was just about it. Otherwise they were simply upper-middle class Frenchwomen, looking for love, as far as I could tell.

Basically, it was a fun light comedy, definitely in the vein of Sex and the City--unrealistic people doing unlikely things. The main difference was that three of the four women were mothers. The funniest part of the plot was one of the characters' entering into a same-sex civil union with her Arabic au pair, so the latter wouldn't be deported (it also brought in one of the most serious parts of the whole movie, the reaction of the au pair's brother).

The film has sold over a million tickets in France. It probably shattered a lot of people's stereotypes about Sephardic Jewish women there. But I don't think the film said anything about real Sephardic Jewish women in France at all.