If you appreciate their acting, and enjoy the words of the battle between them - during which the duchess prevaricates until it is too late - it will seem fascinating.
Comment
12/28/07
The Duchess of Langeais (2008)
67 %
Reviews Counted: 55 Fresh: 37 Rotten:18 Average Rating: 6.4/10
Consensus:
At times plodding and dialogue heavy, The Duchess of Langeais is nevertheless an intriguing and rewarding dissection of class and gender relations.
Runtime: 2 hrs 17 mins
Synopsis: Jacques Rivette (VA SAVOIR) directs this masterful adaptation of Honoré de Balzac's novel about a game of hearts between General Armand de Montriveau (Guillaume Depardieu), a protégé of Bonaparte in Restoration-era France, and Antoinette (Jeanne Balibar), the married but flirtatious... [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Jeanne Balibar, Guillaume Depardieu, Bulle Ogier, Michel Piccoli, Barbet Schroeder
Director: Jacques Rivette
Screenwriter: Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent
Producer: Pierre Grise Productions
Composer: Pierre Allio
Screenwriter: Pascal Bonitzer, Christine Laurent
Producer: Pierre Grise Productions
Composer: Pierre Allio
Reviews
The duologues between the couple seldom vary in tone: he's the doormat, and she wipes her silk slippers on him. Depardieu makes for a compelling presence, even if he's a bit one-note.
12/28/07
In a tale of passion, don’t we want passion? Instead of Rivette’s painterly pose-striking tableaux, would we not like some madness and modernism?
12/28/07
Top Critic Top Critic
Terrific performances by the two leads make this a far more rewarding film than the rigorous formality might suggest.
12/28/07
Top Critic
No lavish costume drama, it's instead a theatrical dissection of the spiteful games lovers play.
12/28/07
Top Critic
A rewarding and cleverly constructed experiment - but not one that is easy to enjoy or warm to. All will agree that it's a fine thing that Rivette should still be pushing the boundaries, few will actually want to watch him doing it.
12/28/07
Top Critic
Balibar delivers a supremely arch portrayal of a woman whose every gesture and expression seem calculated for effect.
12/28/07
The whole thing is compelling from start to finish; ‘cruel ironies’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.
12/28/07
Top Critic
The everyday moviegoer will find it as impenetrable as its heroine. But if you vibrate to nuances of style, if you enjoy tension gathering strength beneath terrible restraint, if you admire great acting, then you will.
06/20/08
Top Critic
The director guides the viewer through a sly consideration of near-sociopathic not-quite-lovers, one of whom finds refuge in religion, the other in romantic obsession.
06/19/08
If you like multi-arced episodes of Masterpiece (formerly Masterpiece Theatre), the pacing might work in this padded film. As it was, experiencing this in real time was akin to watching two snails race on a muddy track.
06/10/08
Classy? Yes,
05/09/08
Even though it's nearly 2 1/2 hours, unfolds in flashback and derives from Balzac, then, The Duchess of Langeais is among Rivette's more succinct and approachable works.
05/09/08
The Duchess of Langeais is a stately costume drama of wrenching passions expressed in courtly phrases.
05/09/08
Jacques Rivette’s Duchess of Langeais seems to me a nearly impeccable work of art -- beautiful, true, profound.
04/14/08
Top Critic
It is the ultimate in movie as pane of glass, completely un-self-conscious of its own movieness but simply an intensely focused examination of human behavior on a narrative armature.
04/10/08
Based on a Balzac story, Rivette's Duchess manages to be both old-fashioned in its settings and circumstances, and coolly modern in its view of thwarted passion and despair.
03/28/08
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(2008 USA release)-THE DUCHESS OF LANGEAIS will open on Friday, February 22nd in NYC!
by: ReelReviewer.com 2/28
by: ReelReviewer.com 2/28
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