La Clé sur la porte is a novel written by Marie Cardinal and published in 1972. It is the story of a woman trying to reexamine her own values and free herself from social restraints after suffering a lifetime of oppression. The novel describes her self-therapy; a kind of experiment, allowing her children the freedom she never had in her own strict upbringing, and her ‘interviews’ with their friends.

Plot summary

A forty-year old woman describes her life living in an apartment in Paris with her three children and their friends. As a community experiment based on total freedom the key lives permanently over the door and everyone comes and goes as they please. She contrasts her formerly strict and closed world against the free one of today; obedience to values against wavering anarchy; alacrity and faineance; hard loneliness versus warm fraternity. Marie Cardinal invites us to question these themes in this personal and passionate book, rich in humour and emotion. La Clé sur la porte is a serious and picturesque novel of today's youth, written by an elder who knew how to commingle.

Adaptation

A movie with the same title was adapted in 1977 by Writer/Director André Weinfeld

André Weinfeld

An alumnus of prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, André Weinfeld is a French and American film and television producer, director, screenwriter, photographer and journalist.-Early life:...

 from the novel. It starred Annie Girardot

Annie Girardot

Annie Girardot was a French actress.She began performing in 1955, making her film debut in Treize à table. Girardot won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti in 1956, and in 1977 won the César Award for Best Actress portraying the title character in Docteur Françoise Gailland...

 and Patrick Dewaere

Patrick Dewaere

Patrick Dewaere was a French film actor. He was born in Saint-Brieuc, Côtes-d'Armor, son of French actress Mado Maurin. His five siblings, Jean-Pierre Maurin , Yves-Marie Maurin , Dominique Maurin , Jean-Francois Maurin and Marie-Veronique Maurin Patrick Dewaere (26 January 1947 – 16 July 1982)...

 and was directed by Yves Boisset

Yves Boisset

Yves Boisset is a French film director and scriptwriter.French director Yves Boisset began his career as an assistant director. After working with such directors as Hossein, Cioampi and Clement, he began directing short films until the late 1960s when he made his feature film debut...

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