In "The Midwife," director Martin Provost ("Seraphine") aims for a tough-minded dramedy about a stiff-necked woman, Claire (Catherine Frot), whose occupation and temperament are all business. Beatrice (Catherine Deneuve), her late father's aging mistress, is told she is dying, and now is desperate to reconnect with Claire, the daughter of the man she considers the true love of her life.
Claire, now alone in the world except for infrequent visits from her handsome medical-student son Simon (Quentin Dolmaire), at first hates the very idea of Beatrice, a libertine free spirit whom she considers responsible for her dad's suicide. If "The Midwife" is to work its Gallic charms on you, you must invest, for at least 117 minutes, in the movie fantasy that an uptight, obstinate workaholic could abide the mere presence of an irresponsible individual who mocks her values and who was, at the very least, a catalyst for the greatest tragedy of her life.
Warning: "The Midwife" is not for the squeamish. In fact, the first five minutes push us as close as technically possible to several actual live births, with which actress Catherine Frot is actually assisting (with the permission of the mothers). I have always hated the sight of real operations, but these realistic delivery-room scenes didn't put me off, are essential to the story, and are reprised several times, constituting the filmmakers' illustration that life does indeed go on, irrespective of our wishes. (The funniest of these scenes involves the cellphone-video-wielding dad whom Claire orders to stop filming and assist in the birth of his son. "Sir, I'm going to need you. Put your hands under her buttocks and lift up.")
This film is nothing without Frot and Deneuve, whose frosty sparring sessions are well-launched in a restaurant scene where Beatrice orders herself a hearty lunch, complete with the right wine, while Claire silently fumes until she breaks the news that the man of their lives is no more.
Beatrice: "You don't want to eat?"
Claire: "He's dead. It was in the papers. It's on Wikipedia in black-and-white. He committed suicide. Shortly after you left."
"I don't read the papers. I never have. And I'm lost with Internet. How?"
"You really want to know? He shot himself in the heart. I found him at home. The apartment where we all lived."
"I'm so mad at myself. You can't imagine, Claire. I thought that after all this time, we'd meet up, forget all that nonsense, and make peace. What a fool I am! You must hate me. Where's he buried?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does. I want to see him."
"He was cremated. Mother and I tossed his ashes in the Seine."
On the face of it, this relationship appears kaput. But that's just where writer-director Provost provides a succession of subplots, including an improbable romance for Claire with a middle-aged long-distance truck driver Paul (tough guy Olivier Gourmet, taking a rare cream-puff turn as an unusually empathetic available bachelor). Claire's son Simon also slips in as social glue.
In the end, "The Midwife" remains an at-times awkward two-hander, sanctifying relationships that most Americans would consider fit only for the grist of tabloid TV, and only then if the participants were hugely famous or notorious. When does a soap-opera-style plot transcend its seedy origins and deserve to be taken seriously? To get his characters over that hump, Provost exceeds the film's appropriate running time of by at least 20 minutes. The baby-delivery scenes, which will doubtless be a hit on YouTube, will soften the blow for art-house audiences.