It's a likeable piece and a prime audition reel for both Rudd and Malco.
Comment
09/13/02
The Chateau (2002)
50
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:52
Fresh:26
Rotten:26
Average Rating:5.3/10
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Jesse Peretz follows up his subdued first feature, FIRST LOVE, LAST RITES, with this outrageous comedy, shot on digital video. The story follows brothers Graham (Paul Rudd) and Allen (Romany Malco)... [More]
Starring: Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Sylvie Testud, Didier Flamand
Director: Jesse Peretz
Reviews for The Chateau
A culture clash comedy only half as clever as it thinks it is.
09/13/02
'The Château is never quite able to overcome the cultural moat surrounding its ludicrous and contrived plot.'
09/11/02
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09/09/02
Top CriticA culture-clash comedy that, in addition to being very funny, captures some of the discomfort and embarrassment of being a bumbling American in Europe.
09/06/02
Thanks to The Château's balance of whimsicality, narrative discipline and serious improvisation, almost every relationship and personality in the film yields surprises.
09/06/02
... a fluffy, flaky croissant of a culture clash comedy, barely substantial enough for a feature but just light and tasty enough to satisfy.
09/05/02
Limps along on a squirm-inducing fish-out-of-water formula that goes nowhere and goes there very, very slowly.
09/05/02
Ze movie starts out so funny, then she is nothing.
08/30/02
Has the gritty look of a Dogma film, which shows what the movement's influence has been reduced to: a trendy look, not a set of principles for honest, no-frills filmmaking.
08/29/02
An enjoyable comedy of lingual and cultural differences… The Château is a film -- full of life and small delights -- that has all the wiggling energy of young kitten.
08/26/02
Boasts enough funny dialogue and sharp characterizations to be mildly amusing.
08/26/02
A pleasant diversion.
08/23/02
The Chateau has one very funny joke and a few other decent ones, but all it amounts to is a mildly funny, sometimes tedious, ultimately insignificant film.
08/23/02
Peretz comes up with enough fresh twists to the ugly American vs. surly French confrontation to sustain this delightfully bittersweet culture-clash comedy.
08/22/02
Top CriticThe Chateau belongs to Rudd, whose portrait of a therapy-dependent flakeball spouting French malapropisms ... is a nonstop hoot.
08/22/02
An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.
08/22/02
With the supremely gifted Rudd as his point man, Peretz is often ruthless in depicting Americans abroad as deluded cretins; by film’s end, however, he finds their optimism useful for re-firing the defeated hearts of his characters.
08/22/02
Click to read the article
08/22/02
Suffers from rambling, repetitive dialogue and the visual drabness endemic to digital video.
08/21/02
Top CriticLatest News for The Chateau
May 04, 2005:
Zach Braff & Amanda Peet On the "Fast Track"
The Hollywood Reporter brings news of an upcoming project involving Zach Braff ("Garden State") and Amanda Peet ("The Whole Nine Yards"). Produced by the... More...
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