Coline Serreau’s feminist comedy-drama (2001), about an exploited middle-aged housewife and mother nursing back to health a severely beaten Algerian prostitute, zips along with exemplary anger. Yet she’s created a world in which all the bad guysvirtually every male in sightget their comeuppance and all the women reap their just rewards, which may be another form of whoring: catering to the audience’s baser desires. With Catherine Frot, Rachida Brakni, and Vincent Lindon. In French with subtitles. 109 min. (JR)