In her 2001 book Conversations, Bernadette Chirac described her long marriage to the French president, Jacques Chirac, as “not just a marriage of love, but a marriage of ambition.” Having worked behind the scenes to push her husband’s career and endured his endless affairs, she thought when he was elected in 1995 she would get the position she deserved. Instead, she found herself pushed to the side because opinion polls showed that the public found her cold and unapproachable. Her revenge was to turn herself into a major media figure, impeccably dressed by Karl Lagerfeld. Catherine Deneuve, the grande dame of French cinema, plays Bernadette in this sprightly political satire as a woman truly coming into her own.