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MOVIES / ON DVD / KINGS AND QUEEN
Kings and Queen

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Kings and Queen (2005)

87%
100%
63%
N/A
N/A
N/A
87 %
Reviews Counted: 55 Fresh: 48  Rotten:7 Average Rating: 7.5/10
 
Consensus: A dryly comic, stylistically brave film.
 

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 2 hrs 30 mins

Synopsis: KINGS AND QUEEN is the exhilarating new film from Arnaud Desplechin (My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument, Esther Kahn). Starring two of France's greatest young actors, Emmanuelle Devos (Read My Lips) and Mathieu Amalric (My Sex Life), KINGS AND QUEEN expertly mixes comedy, tragedy... KINGS AND QUEEN is the exhilarating new film from Arnaud Desplechin (My Sex Life... or How I Got Into an Argument, Esther Kahn). Starring two of France's greatest young actors, Emmanuelle Devos (Read My Lips) and Mathieu Amalric (My Sex Life), KINGS AND QUEEN expertly mixes comedy, tragedy and melodrama to tell the emotionally gripping story of the intersecting lives of two former lovers. The film was nominated for seven Cesars in France (including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress), where it continues to be a box office hit, and was an audience and critical favorite at the 2004 Venice, Toronto and New York film festivals. Nora (Emmanuelle Devos) is a 35-year-old art gallery director and single mother struggling to rise above tragic circumstances — a late husband, a failed second marriage and a lover's suicide — through her successful career and marriage to a wealthy businessman. Ismaël (Mathieu Amalric), her ex-husband, is a disheveled, neurotic musician who descends into a comic nightmare when he is mistakenly committed to a mental hospital. He faces off against the steely clinic psychiatrist (Catherine Deneuve, in a scene-stealing cameo), but his eccentric antics — including an in-house pharmacy raid with his drug-addicted lawyer – earn a ten-day stay that may leave him worse off than when he entered. On discovering that her father is terminally ill and fearing for the future of her young son, Nora tracks down Ismaël at the institution to enlist his help. A series of intimate revelations and reversals further connects these disparate lives, offering several enigmas, as well as a rich examination of love, memory, mental health, and family responsibility. Director Arnaud Desplechin draws inspiration from mythology, Shakespeare and the grand novels of the past to tell this very modern tale of human relationships. The bold sensibility on display in KINGS AND QUEEN — fearlessly traversing between heart-wrenching drama and burlesque hilarity — firmly establishes him as one of the most exciting young directors working in cinema today. -- © Wellspring Media [More]

Genre: Foreign Films

Starring: Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric, Catherine Deneuve, Valentin Lelong, Jean-Paul Roussillon

Director: Arnaud Desplechin
Screenwriter: Arnaud Desplechin, Roger Bohbot
Producer: Pascal Caucheteux
Composer: Gregoire Hetzel

DVD Info

Release:

Jan 10, 2007

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Region (unknown)
  • Keep Case
  • Widescreen

Audio:

  • 5.1 Mix

Additional Release Material:

  • Interviews
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • Filmographies

Text/Photo Gallery:

  • Trailer Gallery

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 >> >|
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Ratings Image
4/5

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
04/01/06
Empire Magazine
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N/R

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Full Review | comment Comment
06/09/05
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
3/5

If the film is less than the sum of its parts, then some of those parts are touched by genius.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/31/05
Matthew Leyland
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
N/A

a complex, character-driven film that never allows its themes - madness, love, coming of age - to become reducible to pat formulae, or over-sentimentalisation.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/10/07
Anton Bitel
Eye for Film
Ratings Image
N/A

Its novelistic breadth, pitched intensity and on-the-fly shooting style pull the viewer smack-dab into the middle of these lives.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/01/07
Erica Abeel
Film Journal International
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2/4

A highly unstable compound of melodrama and offbeat comedy that elicits more shrugs of confusion than sighs of satisfaction

Full Review | comment Comment
08/27/06
Jay Antani
Perihelion Journal
Ratings Image
3/4

Desplechin's big, bold, iconoclastic feature Rois et Reine is a disconcerting film that can turn your head at the oddest moments.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/30/06
Kate Taylor
Globe and Mail
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3.5/4

Funny, absurd, often mocking itself and always quoting cultural history.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/30/06
Susan Walker
Toronto Star
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2.5/4

I can't quite get my head around it; Ismael is too cartoony and Nora is too icy.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/10/06
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
Ratings Image
N/A

[M]ixes with aplomb equal measures of intellectual screwball comedy and dark metaphysical tragedy, though part of the joke may be that one often can't tell which is which...

Full Review | comment Comment
01/03/06
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher
Ratings Image
4.5/5

the film proves, at the very least, that Desplechin is a director that garners due attention

Full Review | comment Comment
12/02/05
Chris Cabin
Filmcritic.com
Ratings Image
3/4

This is a first-rate melo-dramedy under the influence of director Arnaud Desplechin.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/02/05
Michele Kenner
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Ratings Image
A

While these characters' lives are melodramatic, individual scenes burst with kinetic energy from fast editing and an script that deftly underscores the destructive nature of male-female relationships.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/29/05
Bob Longino
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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3.5/4

Great filmmaking and, as does not always follow, a great film.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/04/05
Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
09/26/05
Onion AV Club
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B+

It is well-acted and written with a rigorous effort to skirt cliche, and it has the savor of real life throughout.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/16/05
Shawn Levy
Oregonian
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'3.5/4'

Heroic and absurdist...

Full Review | comment Comment
09/02/05
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
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2.5/4

There's a looseness to the camera work and storytelling that's appealingly breezy: This film feels, for better or worse, like real life.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/26/05
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times
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A

His scenes ripple with undercurrents of awkward emotions... creating a film both devastating and uplifting, but he passes no judgments.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/25/05
Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ratings Image
4/4

Kings and Queen, full of passion and humor, madness and grief, is close to a masterpiece.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/18/05
Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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