French filmmaker François Ozon, freely adapting a 1980 stageplay by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy, sets his sights on women’s place in society and politics with the 1970s-set, screwball-tinged Potiche, its title native slang for an empty-vessel, eye candy spouse.

Catherine Deneuve, as luminous as ever even in her late 60s, stars as Suzanne Pujol, an intelligent but submissive housewife who, after the illness-related forced vacation of her patronizing, philandering husband, Robert (Fabrice Luchini), steps into his position as CEO at the umbrella factory her father started. She drafts her two adult children into the business; reconnects with an old paramour, union advocate Maurice (Gérard Depardieu); and soon showcases an unexpectedly strong talent for brokering happy compromise with disgruntled employees. When Robert returns, however, sparks fly over her place in the company, and household.

The same freewheeling (and classically French) view on human sexuality present in a lot of Ozon’s other work is at hand in Potiche as well — Suzanne is momentarily upset by her husband’s dalliances, but more by some of the specifics than the acts themselves, since she too has romantic secrets — yet it’s not as pronounced as in something like Swimming Pool or Water Drops on Burning Rocks. Issues of gender and class are explored, and past affairs and issues of paternity get trotted out, but the satire herein isn’t necessarily pointed. Rather, it feels a bit dutiful, even if smiling and fun. A confection loosely in the vein of Ozon’s more snappishly paced 8 Women, which also featured Deneuve, Potiche certainly isn’t an essential work, but it does feature a rather sublime ending for fans of its wonderful and legendary lead actress. (Music Box, unrated, 103 minutes)