Gervaise is a 1956 film from France directed by Rene Clement.
It is based on the novel L'Assommoir by Émile Zola, and the setting is Paris in the 1860s and 1870s. Gervaise (Maria Schell) is a washer-woman whom, as the film opens, is trapped in an unfortunate relationship with a man named Lantier. Lantier has not bothered to marry Gervaise despite being with her for many years and fathering two children with her, and he cheats on her flagrantly. While Gervaise is working at the washroom, Virginie (Suzy Delair), sister to Lantier's latest girlfriend, shows up and taunts her. A cat fight ensues which ends with Gervaise humiliating Virginie, who vows revenge.
In the meantime, Lantier up and leaves Gervaise without warning. Gervaise is left a struggling single mother with two children, so at first, she's very happy when she is romanced by a roofer named Coupeau. They marry, they have a daughter, and Coupeau works as a roofer while Gervaise saves up for her dream, opening her own laundry. Gervaise seems to have found happiness—but one day Coupeau falls off a roof and shatters his leg. He's unable to work, and he turns to drink. He becomes a full-blown alcoholic, and things get worse, and worse, and worse.
Tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Coupeau takes to drink when he's laid up in bed after his injury, no longer able to work as a roofer. He spirals down into alcoholism, the decisive turning point that ruins both his and Gervaise's life. At the end, when he's going through DTs, he freaks out and wrecks the whole shop.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Not only does Virginie succeed in utterly destroying Gervaise's life, she also gets Gervaise's laundry. The ending shows that she has turned it into a candy shop.
- Blind People Wear Sunglasses: A blind beggar wearing sunglasses is shown outside the church where Gervaise and Coupeau get married. In the only joke in this otherwise unrelentingly grim movie, the beggar is revealed to be faking. He flips around the "BLIND" sign on his chest to one that says "DEAF AND DUMB."
- Call-Forward: At the end, Gervaise's little daughter Nana puts a ribbon in her hair. She goes skipping down the street as local boys dash after her. The book that this film is based on, L'Assommoir, was part of a 20-novel Generational Saga written by Emile Zola. Two books later came Nana, one of Zola's most famous novels, in which the cute little girl in this movie has grown up and become a prostitute.
- Cat Fight: Gervaise and Virginie have a nasty cat fight in the washroom that ends with Gervaise pulling Virginie's underwear down and paddling her bare bottom. This is the entirety of Virginie's motivation in ruining Gervaise's life in the second half of the film.
- Character Narrator: Gervaise is sometimes heard giving offscreen narration, like in one scene where she is sharing too much with Virginie about her personal life, and Gervaise wonders why she was so foolish as to tell everything.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Coupeau has to sign when his wife is renting out the shop, even though she's paying with her own money (and even though he can only sign with an X). This scene shows the patriarchy in 1860s France but it also leads to disaster, as Coupeau slips and falls while climbing off the roof.
- Erotic Eating: By the time of Gervaise's big party, her marriage to Coupeau the drunk has gone sour and she's realized how attracted she is to Goujet. The share a long, intense look into each other's eyes at the dinner table, as they both slowly and deliberately eat roast duck.
- Flashback: Gervaise thinks about how scheming Virginie must have told Goujet about what happened with her and Lantier. Cue a flashback to a scene where Coupeau was brought home so drunk that he vomited on the bed before passing out. A despairing Gervaise gave in to Lantier in a moment of weakness and they had sex.
- Footsie Under the Table: Gervaise, Lantier, and Virginie are all watching a vaudeville show together. Lantier puts a hand on Virginie's thigh under the table. Virginie, who is working diligently to ruin Gervaise's life, takes his hand off of her thigh and puts it on Gervaise's. Gervaise pushes his hand away.
- Great Offscreen War: One scene shows a caravan of cavalry and artillery going through the streets as bells ring. This is the film's only reference to the Franco-Prussian War, and it dates everything in the latter portion of the film to after 1870.
- Kitchen Sink Drama: A tragic drama about a working-class woman who tries to lift herself up by starting her own business, only to fail and be left in poverty and despair, thanks mostly to the asshole men in her life.
- Lady Drunk: The last scene shows Gervaise in a bar, now a dirty, disheveled drunk. She stares emptily at little Nana when Nana offers her a piece of candy.
- Never Learned to Read: Coupeau, who signs the wedding certificate with an X and says "That counts, doesn't it?" There's a Call-Back to this later when Coupeau, who has become a belligerent drunk, mocks Gervaise's neat and tidy handwriting.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Mme. Lorilleux, Coupeau's sister, who makes all sorts of unfriendly comments about how she doesn't think her brother should be marrying a woman who already has two children.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Nana leaves her mother in a bar, drunk, and goes skipping off down the street as local boys run after her.
- The One That Got Away: Gervaise realizes too late that her true love wasn't Coupeau, it was Goujet the blacksmith. She nearly leaves her husband for him, but his hesitation about getting with a married woman, and the machinations of evil Virginie who makes sure he hears the rumors about Gervaise and Lantier, kill their romance.
- Stocking Filler: Coupeau gets excited when he sees Gervaise peeling off a stocking. Sex follows.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Gervaise, who has a one-night stand with Lantier and nearly leaves her husband for Goujet. The sex with Lantier was a major error in judgment, but she's still sympathetic, because her husband is an angry, worthless drunk.
- 13 Is Unlucky: It's considered so unlucky that, when the group realizes there are exactly thirteen people at Gervaise's name day party, Coupeau goes out to find a 14th guest.
- Time Skip: "Time passed, the children grew," and Coupeau and Gervaise had a daughter, in a time skip that follows the wedding.
- Train-Station Goodbye: Goujet and Gervaise's son Etienne don't even notice her as she watches them leave on the train. Gervaise, whose life is circling around the toilet by now, thinks that they were the only good things in her life and that's why they left.
- Zip Me Up: Goujet helps pin up Gervais's hair. This leads to a kiss.
