Suzanne meets Guillaume by chance in a café, his overly confident demeanour and charm invites her immediately to dinner and their brief romance begins.
She is not particularly beautiful or extravagant, but she is nice, even too nice. And she is more than willing to go out and spend time with Guillaume. In fact, she calls him every day, she endures his escapades with other girls, he humiliates her in front of people and she forgives him a minute later. It really is hopeless. She chases him all over Paris, she even chases his best friend. The boys, just for fun, decide to make her pay for all their night outs and dinners together until she goes broke and has to borrow money for food. Yet still, she remains friendly and kind to everyone.
The story is told by Guillaume’s best friend, who can hardly stand her. He despises her lack of dignity, her remarkable endurance and willingness to suffer, her total nativity and desperation that makes her latch onto everyone she meets. He despises her appearance and her manners. And seeing him being polite to her is even more torture to watch.
Suzanne keeps up her good positive spirits and ends up with a fiancé who is truly in love with her. Our friend the raconteur reflects correctly in saying that she was never motivated by pride but more by good will and her ability to only look at the positive sides in people. The thing that made her look stupid and undignified at first, was actually her maturity. She didn’t need to engage in games and silly power plays. She doesn’t have to be petty to appear strong and respectable. The boys failed toes her for who she really is. She stayed true to herself and her principles. Her now newly find happiness exposes them as playing children. She got real revenge in the end without even wanting to. Life itself took care of it and makes a mockery out of these two little thieves. That is the career of Suzanne.
La Carrière de Suzanne, Éric Rohmer, 1963
