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Alias Betty
Wellspring Cinema

Alias Betty reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 73 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.0 out of 10
based on 22 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 2 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

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

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...

100
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
In today's cynical cinematic climate, there's something beautiful in Miller's simple poetic justice.
Read Full Review
90
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
90
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
90
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
88
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
83
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
80
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.
80
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
80
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
80
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
75
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
75
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
It's one of the season's most original and energetic movies.
Read Full Review
75
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
70
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.
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70
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.
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70
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Complicated thriller that gets more interesting as its complications pile up.
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70
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
If the ending isn't conventionally happy, it's certainly deeply satisfying.
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67
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Makes it pretty difficult to tell the difference between good mothers and bad.
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63
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
63
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.
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60
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Makes for interesting, rather than emotionally compelling viewing.
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20
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

Vote Now!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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