My Man

About

You can watch My Man (1996) on Kanopy with a participating library card.

In Lyon, where many are unemployed, Marie is a prostitute who loves her work: she's thoughtful and exuberant toward clients old and young, slim or flabby. One night, a homeless man sleeps in the foyer of her apartment house; she gives him a hot meal, then a place on the floor to sleep by her radiator, then she offers herself. She falls in love, giving him new life, clothes, a place to live. When he grouses that he must bar hop while she uses the flat for her work, she finds them a larger flat. He grows restless, seducing a manicurist and pressing her to prostitution. He's arrested for procuring, so Marie must decide what to do; he, too, must face the consequences of his choices.

Radiating a soulful, uninhibited warmth, the lead actress turns a routine encounter with a transient stranger into a tender study of human connection. This Lyon-set slice of life finds beauty in the most unexpected margins of urban poverty.