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Alias Betty

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 2 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Foreign
Written by:
Claude Miller
Ruth Rendell (novel The Tree of Hands)
Directed by: Claude Miller
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 13, 2002
DVD: March 11, 2003
Running Time: 103 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Canada
Language(s): French (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Sandrine Kiberlain, Nicole Garcia, Mathilde Seigner, Luck Mervil, Edouard Baer, Stéphane Freiss, and Yves Jacques
As novelist Betty Fisher (Kiberlain) starts becoming darkly depressed after the death of her young son, her plotting mother arranges to have another little boy kidnapped to take his place.
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
In today's cynical cinematic climate, there's something beautiful in Miller's simple poetic justice.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Such an accomplished piece of filmmaking that it interweaves enough characters and themes to fill three movies.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
The last-minute details of plot can't compete with the frightening intensity of Kiberlain's and Garcia's performances, which trace, with brilliant precision, the exhausting mix of brutality and grace inherent in the mother-daughter relationship.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A confidently adroit thriller that captures a comprehensive sense of life in an edgy, multicultural and economically diverse Paris. The large cast couldn't be better, but the film belongs to Kiberlain.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
What really makes Alias Betty stand out, even from good recent French ensemble films like "Eight Women" and "Venus Beauty Institute," is that ingenious, Rendell-derived story. To kidnap an old phrase, it's a corker.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
A nifty, entwined, ultimately gripping adaptation of British crime writer Ruth Rendell's novel ''The Tree of Hands'' by French director Claude Miller.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Mr. Miller tells several interlocking stories with such daring and intensity that you sense he could go on indefinitely, spinning one terrific yarn off another.
Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
What's wonderful about director Claude Miller's adaptation of Ruth Rendell's novel "The Tree of Hands" is its grand capacity for compassion and complexity.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Leslie Camhi
Infusing Rendell's intrigue with warmth and humor, Miller makes the film's sometimes mechanical and giddy narrative into something grander -- a meditation on maternity as a form of inspired madness.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
This quiet French thriller gets to the heart of motherhood, and then pays off with comfort and calm.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel
Somehow, it all works -- even if Miller relies on a plot that meanders a bit and loses some of its luster.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
It's one of the season's most original and energetic movies.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
Despite a contrived ending that brings together all the film's characters, Alias Betty is inventive filmmaking.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
A lot goes on, and it doesn't always make sense. But the cast embodies Rendell's ability to incorporate shrewd observations on human behavior into the framework of a crime story, and Miller has a great eye for the places on the Paris outskirts where the lives of haves and have-nots intersect.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
As long as Miller simply crosscuts between the machinations of the three mothers, the sociological and psychological parallels are intriguing, but when they're forced to share the same story line, the contrivances and coincidences begin to seem fussily elaborate.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Complicated thriller that gets more interesting as its complications pile up.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
If the ending isn't conventionally happy, it's certainly deeply satisfying.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Makes it pretty difficult to tell the difference between good mothers and bad.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Of the several threads interwoven here, only one is riveting, thanks to the performance of Sandrine Kiberlain as Betty.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Janice Page
Miller is certainly faithful to the spirit of Rendell's psychologically probing, class-dissecting novels, even if his probing doesn't go nearly as deep and his storytelling isn't as compelling.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Makes for interesting, rather than emotionally compelling viewing.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
The good news might be that Huppert wasn't available for Alias Betty, but the bad news is that it didn't stop France from exporting yet one more cold, pretentious, thoroughly dislikable study in sociopathy.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it an8:
Who abused the boy? The mother is a bit of a strumpet but she doesn't seem to have any violent impulses. Could it be her black boyfriend. I hope not, but that seems to be the point. Black people get blamed for a lot of things they didn't do. We wouldn't mind if "Alias Betty" settled on one narrative; Betty Fisher's life after her tragedy, but this film is too ambitious to be maudlin. "Alias Betty" is wonderfully subversive about motherhood.
Craig B. gave it an 8:
I am generally suspicious of movies centered around some sort of personal tragic event because lazy screen writers often will use such events as the death of a child or the rape of a person to try and create a level of pathos and empathy in the viewer that is not warranted by the quality of the writing. Why bother writing quality dialogue or creating interesting characters when one can artifically involve a viewer by exploiting a tragic situation? Well, this movie manages to provide the interesting characters and the believable dialogue without exploiting its particular tragic event, and that is a commendable thing. This film delivered a good message in a stylish manner.
