MOVIE REVIEWS : From France, Laughter and Romance : Fairy tale: In Coline Serreau’s charming ‘Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed,’ a cleaning woman becomes a goddess.

Why do some fairy tales work for us while others turn leaden or rancid right before our eyes? Tone. Characters. And, bottom line, the people must generate enough affection for us to will the preposterous to come true.

Writer-director Coline Serreau’s “Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed” (Westside Pavilion), the story of a real insider who tips the boss to the unscrupulous practices and plots against him in his own company, works as charmingly as it does because it has a real beating heart in its central pair. They are Antilles-born newcomer Firmine Richard and Daniel Auteuil, minus the dental appliances and general look of imbecility he used as the peasant Ugolin in “Jean de Florette” and “Manon of the Spring.”

Richard is formidable as Juliette, mother of five who has worked 10 years as the night cleaning woman at the executive offices of Romuald Blindet (Auteuil). Since the film will literally stand or fall with her performance, it’s fortunate that she’s the presence she is; someone who can unequivocally be perceived as “beautiful, funny, a fountain of goodness and a courageous woman.”

Conjuring with the same free hand with which she dropped an irresistible baby on three Parisian bachelors in “Three Men and a you-know-what,” Serreau has Auteuil blind to the crosscurrents within his successful yogurt manufacturing company. He doesn’t even know that the young and ferrety Paulin (Gilles Privat), whom he has just promoted to a vice presidency, and Romuald’s own wife are . . . somewhat more than business acquaintances.

No fool but no snitch either, Juliette has observed a lot of this silently. When business affairs make it imperative, she does tell Romuald about the intriguers plotting against him--but not the identity of his wife’s lover. It’s a crucial, nice distinction.

With his business under investigation, Romuald must disappear for a while and where better, in a fairy tale, than to the already bulging walk-up apartment of Juliette and her brood, ages 4 to 17, where, you can be assured, he learns something of life from the other side.

Not too much. We notice that when Juliette lugs groceries, Romuald is something less than a Boy Scout or even a halfway alert human being about pitching in. And when she gives him her bed and takes her turn with a pillow in the bathtub or a spot in her kids’ bedroom, he is lox enough to allow her the sacrifice. Pfui .

But Serreau’s whole point is the ignobility of some and the natural grace of others and the capacity for change. And if it takes Romuald rather a long time to perceive Juliette for what she is, even after a scene when he accidentally sees her asleep, looking like one of Gauguin’s goddesses, that means more time for us to spend with her--and her five children and, on occasion, her five previous husbands. It’s some of the best fun of the movie.

It’s not hard to tell where Serreau is taking us, but she also throws in a few nice character twists or two. There’s also one of those scenes you really yearn for, classic as the defeat of the wicked witch or the downfall of the uninvited fairy. “Mama’s” scene, probably the universal wish-fulfillment moment, involves a personal private secretary and Serreau gives it the full measure of venom.

Auteuil has a tiny streak of craziness to him, perceptible somewhere in his eyes. It was completely unleashed in the “Jean de Florette” films and tapped a bit in “A Few Days With Me,” in which, again, he played a businessman attracted to someone--Sandrine Bonnaire--completely out of his milieu. It’s what gives us hope for Romuald and is the single reason to believe that Juliette is not choosing beneath herself.

True to form, “Mama” (Times-rated Family, allowing for one decorous scene of lovemaking) is already being tooled up for American remake: Richard Dreyfuss, same writer-director, co-star as yet unannounced. They may strike gold twice, but do yourself a vast favor: at least begin with Firmine Richard so you understand what the fuss was all about.

‘MAMA, THERE’S A MAN IN YOUR BED’

A Miramax Films release. Producers Jean-Louis Piel, Philippe Carcassonne. Director, screenwriter Coline Serreau. Camera Jean-Noel Ferragut. Set design Jean-Marc Stehle. Sound Philippe Lioret, Gerard Lamps. Editor Catherine Renault. Costumes Monique Perrot. Costumes for Daniel Auteuil Dominique Morlotti. With Daniel Auteuil, Firmine Richard, Catherine Salviat, Gilles Privat, Sambou Tati.

Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Times-rated: Family.

BACKGROUND

Firmine Richard, a secretary at a consulate office in Antilles, was vacationing in Paris when French director Coline Serreau and her agent spotted her in a restaurant. Just like that, Richard, 42 and married with one son, had a new career. Serreau cast Richard in a role the director describes as “the spiritual center” of “Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed” and the performance has won rave reviews. Since finishing “Mama” in 1988, Richard has begun studying acting seriously and is working in Rome on a film with Vittorio Gassman.