How to Be a Good Wife

How to Be a Good Wife is a French comedy-drama film directed by Martin Provost. The film begins in 1967 in Alsace, France at a school made for good housekeeping, and stars Juliette Binoche as Paulette Van der Beck, a housewife who unexpectedly has to take over leadership of the school after the death of her husband. Plot Set on the historical background of the 1968 student riots in Paris, the plot is located in Van der Beck’s School of Housekeeping and Good Manners in Alsace, in one of the many schools meant for young women in France of that time, to teach them housekeeping, good manners, and, generally, how to be a good wife to a man. In the beginning of the school year, at late 1967, Paulette, the school headmistress and the other school staff, including her husband Robert, Robert's sister Gilberte and the school nun-teacher Marie-Therese check out the women coming to their school that year, and they notice that one of the women they will teach that year is red-headed, and they wonder if that will mean the year will be jinxed. In one of the dinners, a rabbit dish cooked earlier that day by the girls is served. Robert chokes on the rabbit bone and dies. After Robert, who was in charge of the school finances, dies, his wife Paulette and the staff go through his belongings. Among these, they find letters which show that the place in on the brink of bankruptcy. Paulette and Gilberte go to speak to the bank manager to ask for a loan to save the school. The bank manager, André Grunvald, tells them that Robert borrowed too much already; however, he suggests to Paulette to transfer the school on her name, and get another loan. After the meeting, Gilberte leaves the meeting, and Paulette tries to leave too, when Grunvald grabs her by the hand, and asks to meet her. Paulette refuses and leaves the room. Later, when she is back in school, Paulette receives a phone call from Grunvald, who tells her to meet him in 15 minutes. Paulette sneaks out of the school and meets Grunvald. Apparently, they were lovers before Grunvald went to the war. After the war, Paulette's mother dies of heartache after hearing that her husband, Paulette's father, was sent to the camps and died there. Paulette leaves her home after the war and finds a job in the Van der Beck’s School of Housekeeping and Good Manners, so Grunvald's letters never reached her. In the school the manager, Robert, falls in love with her and they marry.