Chloé Robichaud: “With Two Women and Some Men, I wanted a pop film”

Meeting with the Quebec director of this delicious comedy of female emancipation, driven by fine dialogue and a twisting direction

FIRST: the origin of Two women and a few menthere is a movie, Two women in goldreleased in 1970 then a play by Catherine Léger freely adapted and modernized from it in 2023. What do you think makes this story stand the test of time?

Chloé Robichaud: Because I believe that it acts as a reflection of each era on the question of female desire and its evolution. You should know that Two women in gold had enjoyed immense success at the time. It’s a bit of our Emmanuelle in Quebec, very representative of the sexual revolution of the time and also poorly received by critics. I had studied it at university during my cinema studies. Because behind this kind of erotic farce, I found that there was a real feminist message that everyone had missed a little. So I was happy to be able to revisit it and restore some of its nobility years later.

How did this project reach you?

It was Catherine Léger who approached me. I love his work, in particular the very uninhibited, very incisive tone of his dialogues. So I didn’t even need to read his script to say yes to him.

TWO WOMEN AND A FEW MEN: A POINTING PORTRAIT OF FEMININITY (CRITIQUE)

Is there pressure to take on a cult film?

Yes, but not compared to the comparison because the film is not widely distributed. The pressure arose from the reactions aroused by the announcement of this project. Many wondered why remake this film and did not understand why a feminist like me wanted to venture into this, which, moreover, into comedy territory that I had never explored. But I had no doubts. Because I immediately found the thread of what I wanted to tell: this film talks first and foremost about communication difficulties. Of couples who can no longer communicate. Characters disconnected from themselves. And to express it through the staging, I immediately had an almost unique place in mind: the apartment. A space that allows for partitioning where we could feel the characters each in their own room, separated by a wall.

This story is also that of characters who reconnect with desire…

Yes and I wanted to translate this into colors. I wanted a very pop film that embraces this kind of madness that emerges in the characters.

Pop but never kitsch. How do we find this balance?

Balance ! You used the right word. The one that came up in all my discussions with my department heads. The colors should not take up too much space so that the settings remain connected to the interiority of the characters.

Did you have any references in mind?

Marriage Story by Noah Baumbach for his beautiful framing where we feel the distance growing in the couple formed by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson. Contempt for these games between rooms, partitions, separations in space. But above all I wanted to make a humble film. Staying in the truth of these characters who are experiencing an inner drama, not falling into the ease of burlesque for burlesque’s sake or overplaying the comedy. And for this, I was also able to rely on Karine Gonthier-Hyndman and Laurence Leboeuf, two comic geniuses, but endowed with great inner strength.

At their side, we find Félix Moati. What made you want to work with him?

I wanted a French character who well represents today’s Montreal because many of you live there. I had seen Félix in comedies so I had no doubt about his sense of tempo. And he also exudes an immediate empathy which allows us to spontaneously forgive his character’s deviations. And I needed it to translate without adding the slightly adolescent, slightly immature side of it.

What do you remember from this first experience in comedy?

My job remains the same. But I was surprised to find how much I took to it like a fish in water. It did me a lot of good to approach very serious subjects through humor. It was a kind of awakening and something that I want to continue to do in my cinema. I realized the power of comedy, its ability to open up thinking more easily.

Two women and a few men. By Chloé Robichaud. With Karine Gonthier-Hyndman, Laurence Leboeuf, Félix Moati… Duration: 1h40. Released March 4, 2026