Marie, an independent and militant woman, has never needed anyone's help, including when it comes to raising her son. When the latter is expelled from his certificate of professional competence training class, Marie cannot accept it. Dreaming of a brighter future for him, she decides to enrol him in one of the best cooking schools in France.
I think I'd have preferred a more literal translation of the "Woman of the World" title for this film, depicting - as it does - the efforts of "Marie" (Laure Calamy) to do whatever it takes to get her recalcitrant son "Adrien" (Nissim Renard) into cookery school. She makes an OK living as an hooker in Strasbourg, but when his options narrow to just one private school that charges €9000 for a term, she must relocate to a more established brothel where her earnings potential is greater, but she has no say over the clientele! What follows now is a very human story of just what a parent is prepared to do to help her child. It's not especially graphic, much of the sex is left to our imagination - but it still, nonetheless, offers us an interesting perspective on a woman who actually enjoys working in the sex industry. Indeed, she and her colleagues actively campaign against legislation that criminalises their clients. It snows a lot there - and somehow that rather frigid environment, as they both share the same bed in her tiny flat, helps to well frame their tempestuous but ultimately loving relationship. Calamy delivers strongly here. She is convincing and at times her frustrations and aspirations for the young lad are palpable. He, too, performs the role of a disillusioned teenager persuasively as do the ladies she must work and share with at "Bruno's". The ending doesn't sugar-coat anything, and I think that lends extra potency to this really quite watchable tale of a determined and dedicated woman.
