"Girod's 1984 film is a sardonic comedy/melodrama set in high political places, starring Catherine Deneuve. The brilliant and savvy script is by Françoise Giroud, who worked as Renoir's script girl on Grand Illusion (1937) and was later France's secretary of state in charge of women's conditions, then culture minister" (Elliott Stein, Village Voice). Giroud puts her governmental experience to sardonic use; her speciality is capturing intransigent political figures in their moments of weakness and embarrassment. In Le Bon Plaisir, Jean-Louis Trintignant plays the stone-faced president of the republic (evidently a knowing composite portrait) who is also Daddy to Catherine Deneuve's illegitimate child. When Deneuve's handbag, containing a compromising letter concerning the child's birth, is snatched, M. le President is stopped tremblingly in his tracks. Measures must be taken...