A Room in Town (Une chambre en ville in French) is a 1982 French musical drama film written and directed by Jacques Demy.
Set during the real-life workers' strike in Nantes, 1955, the film is a romantic tragedy where the young shipyard worker Francois Guilbaud finds himself drifting away from his longtime girlfriend, Violette Pelletier, in favor of the rich, unhappily married part-time prostitute Edith Leroyer—who is the daughter of his landlady. Edith shares Francois' passion, but with her husband Edmond becoming more paranoid by the minute, strikebreakers on alert, and political tensions rising daily, no happy endings are guaranteed.
This film contains examples of:
- Betty and Veronica: Violette is the sweet, optimistic Betty compared to Edith's daring, frustrated Veronica.
- Bookends: The film begins and ends with strikers demonstrating against the police, which turns violent.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Edith's husband Edmond is constantly stalking her and asking her if she's thinking about him, even waking her up in the middle of the night to do so.
- Darker and Edgier: This film is the most bleakly tragic of Demy's works, with senseless deaths and beatings, infidelity, and suicide among the common themes.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The workers, their wives, and the police are initially filmed in black-and-white until the riot breaks out, at which point it switches to color.
- Domestic Abuse: Edith lives unhappily with her abusive husband, the owner of a television shop.
- Downer Ending: Francois is fatally wounded during a strike, and Edith kills herself rather than live without him.
- Driven to Suicide: Edmond kills himself when Edith makes clear her intent to leave him, and Edith herself dies by suicide when Francois is fatally wounded.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The film covers about three days of time, in which lives are completely ruined and forever changed.
- Fortune Teller: Madame Sforza prophesizes Edith's true love will be a steelworker, but she also sees great tragedy in his future.
- Freudian Excuse: It's implied Edmond is jealous and abusive partly due to sexual impotence.
- Love at First Sight: Edith and Francois fall in love immediately upon meeting, beginning a passionate affair.
- Mood Whiplash: A sweet scene between Francois and Violette immediately transitions to the workers on strike and the reality of their conditions.
- My Secret Pregnancy: Another reason Violette is so eager to get married is because she's pregnant with Francois's child, which he's initially unaware of.
- Red Scare: Margot Langlois worries Francois is a Communist and laments her decision to give him a room.
- Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: The main obstacle to Violette's wish to marry Francois is her own poverty, while Edith is comparatively well-off.
- Sung-Through Musical: Every line of dialogue is sung rather than spoken.
- Unrequited Tragic Maiden: Violette is perfectly nice and sincerely loves Francois, but Francois doesn't return her feelings and falls in love with Edith instead, leaving Violette alone with her mother, miserable, and with his child.
