A film that matches all too well the times it portrays, Gabrielle is claustrophobic, stifling, and not a little crusty. Saved only by its exquisitely bitter performances and immaculate design.
Comment
06/12/07
Gabrielle (2005)
75 %
Reviews Counted: 52 Fresh: 39 Rotten:13 Average Rating: 6.7/10
Consensus:
Patrice Chéreau's exquisite rendering of Joseph Conrad's The Return brings underlying passions to surface in a long-suffering marriage.
Rated: 15
Runtime: 90 mins
Theatrical Release: 17-11-2006
Synopsis: GABRIELLE is Patrice Chéreau's stunning adaptation of the short story "The Return" by Joseph Conrad. Recreating turn-of-the-century France with superb attention to detail, Chéreau casts an unrelenting gaze on the marital breakdown that overwhelms a middle-aged bourgeois couple,... [More]
Genre: Foreign Films
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Pascal Greggory, Raina Kabaivanska
Reviews
Top Critic Top CriticClick to read the article
11/21/06
Top CriticClick to read the article
11/18/06
Top Critic
This is a careful and cinematic adaptation that rings with painful truth.
11/16/06
Top Critic
Rewards those who stay with it...at least those who use terms like deconstruction.
02/22/07
Co-screenwriter/director Patrice Chereau doesn't seem in any particular hurry with the pacing. He practically dawdles, which makes the whole thing feel longer than its relatively scant running time.
12/01/06
Although it is possible that French actress Isabelle Huppert makes the occasional false move, she does not make them in front of a camera.
11/17/06
Chronically impassive and faultlessly incurious about others, Gabrielle has been, for ten years, the perfect ornament of a social circle where 'emotion and failure are feared more than war.'
11/11/06
Most of all, we think, 'Gosh, all of these experiments make for a cold, uninvolving film.'
11/09/06
For the most part, [Chereau] lets Huppert and Greggory provide the emotional impact. They respond accordingly, imbuing their mutual suffering with an exacting and moving finesse.
09/28/06
A shocking, brilliantly original rumination on the subject of marital rot.
09/26/06
Chereau matches Conrad's insistence on psychological accuracy, burrowing through the protective layers of self-delusion that hold so many human relationships together.
09/15/06
Husband and wife, upper-class couple Jean and Gabrielle Hervey, are played, to perfection, by two of France's premier film actors: Pascal Greggory and Isabelle Huppert.
09/07/06
Greggory is up to that journey, revealing the character in his various colors, and Huppert is at her usual best, subtle, emotionally full, focused and honest.
08/25/06
A little less flash, and Gabrielle could have been a subtle classic. As is, it's still a powerful exploration of human nature.
08/25/06
The director's skillful handing and the superb performances are liable to manipulate a smart audience as easily as they manipulate one another.
08/24/06
Explosive and intense, melancholy yet sometimes mordantly funny, Gabrielle is the sort of picture that takes no prisoners. And offers no definitive answers.
08/24/06
Related Forums
GABRIELLE gets a USA theatrical release on Friday, July 14, 2006 (Opens in NYC)!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
GABRIELLE gets a USA theatrical release on Friday, July 14, 2006 (Opens in NYC)!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
GABRIELLE gets a USA theatrical release on Friday, July 14, 2006 (Opens in NYC)!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
GABRIELLE gets a USA theatrical release on Friday, July 14, 2006 (Opens in NYC)!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 12/22/06
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