Micheline Lanctot has served a solid apprenticeship as an actress before making her debut as director on this modestly-budgeted little comedy. That has not stopped the film going on to be a major success around the world. The story is about a passive, gentle handyman from the Gaspe who moves to Montreal after his 10-month-old marriage breaks up Beside being abandoned by his wife and her two young sons. Armand is rejected by a high school nymphet after a short affair, falls in love with a housewife, is friendly with a no-account hustler and pursued from a distance by a wistful homosexual.

L'Homme a tout faire is not a movie that takes critics and audiences by storm, but it is the kind of satisfying film that makes you want to see another film by Micheline Lanctot.

When she was acting. Lanctot had a natural buoyancy about her. . . L'Homme a tout faire also has that quality of buoyant wit. but here it is more than a glimmer of personality. Lanctot is. we discover, a well-nurtured writer and director of comedy.