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Alias Betty
Wellspring Cinema


8.0

based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 2 votes
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FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA 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.

GENRE(S):	Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Claude Miller Ruth Rendell (novel The Tree of Hands)
DIRECTED BY:	Claude Miller
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 11, 2003 Video: March 11, 2003 Theatrical: September 13, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	103 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France / Canada
LANGUAGE(S):	French (with English subtitles)

Original French title "Betty Fisher et Autres Histoires"; Best Actress (Garcia, Kiberlain, Seigner; three-way tie) and FIPRESCI Award, 2001 Montreal World Film Festival; Best Actress (Garcia and Kiberlain), 2001 Chicago International Film Festival

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...

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

In today's cynical cinematic climate, there's something beautiful in Miller's simple poetic justice.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Such an accomplished piece of filmmaking that it interweaves enough characters and themes to fill three movies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This quiet French thriller gets to the heart of motherhood, and then pays off with comfort and calm.

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.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It's one of the season's most original and energetic movies.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Despite a contrived ending that brings together all the film's characters, Alias Betty is inventive filmmaking.

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.

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.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Complicated thriller that gets more interesting as its complications pile up.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

If the ending isn't conventionally happy, it's certainly deeply satisfying.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Makes it pretty difficult to tell the difference between good mothers and bad.

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.

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.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Makes for interesting, rather than emotionally compelling viewing.

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.

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.

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Alias Betty Wellspring Cinema

Alias Betty
Wellspring Cinema