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Duchess of Langeais, The

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 23 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 9 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Romance
Written by:
Jacques Rivette
Christine Laurent
Pascal Bonitzer
Honoré de Balzac (novel "La duchesse de Langeais")
Directed by: Jacques Rivette
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 22, 2008
Running Time: 137 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Italy
Language(s): French
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Jeanne Balibar, and Guillaume Depadieu
Antoinette is the Duchess of Langeais, a married coquette who frequents the most extravagant balls in 1820s Paris during the Restoration, when hypocrisy and vanity reign. From the moment of the handsome general Armand de Montriveau's first meeting with her, he realized it was true love. Flattered by his attentions, the alluring Antoinette orchestrates a calculating game of seduction, but she repeatedly refuses Montriveau. Despite his sincere romantic declarations, Montriveau's passion remains unfulfilled. When the humiliated Montriveau eventually seeks his revenge, Antoinette's love awakens. But it may well be too late for the star-crossed lovers. (IFC Films)
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...
Premiere Glenn Kenny
The first masterpiece of 2008 -- at least by American release date standards -- the latest film from master French director Jacques Rivette is a masterful, multilayered, sometimes enigmatic work of dark irony, an assured tragicomedy of manners and more.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Duchess of Langeais seems to me a nearly impeccable work of art -- beautiful, true, profound.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Jacques Rivette has brought the Balzac short story to screen as a superb chamber drama. His is a graceful work of austerity and formality that perfectly captures the chaos of repressed emotions that see beneath the rigid conventions of aristocratic society.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The movie's satisfactions are subtle, but they run deep, and there are many.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Rivette's slow-moving but seamless study of the rituals of courtship has a disarming grace, even as its downcast hero, Depardieu's Gen. Armand de Montriveau, limps around stiffly.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A highbrow chick flick that made me feel older, in a good way.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Though not exactly a "comedy" of manners, since it's more melancholy than funny, The Duchess Of Langeais is very much concerned with how the rules of social etiquette interfere with raw human need.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The Duchess of Langeais is a romantic dance of death.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
With its sophisticated psychology, its brilliant story structure and its riveting performances, The Duchess of Langeais feels very new, even if everything about it is old.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Balibar and Depardieu make a compelling duo who exude an animal magnetism that's undeniable.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The performances reveal precisely what Rivette wants to reveal, which is to say, in conventional psychological terms, not a great deal.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Masterfully charted and adeptly played, but also rather minimalist.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The Duchess is enragingly elusive and possibly mad; the General is very direct and also possibly mad.
Read Full Review >Variety Russell Edwards
Rivette uses intertitles (including some direct quotes from Balzac) to move the plot along and underline the dry wit. Helming is both leisurely and exact, offering auds ample opportunities to intimately observe the selfishness and folly of two people who would rather fight than switch.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Rivette has aged into one of cinema’s most ingenious minimalists. In The Duchess of Langeais he uses intertitles--bits of literary exposition--with cheeky understatement.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Nathan Lee
Rivette is teasing his way, thinking afresh, playing a game but tweaking its rules, telling a story, but only sort of--making, in short, not simply a movie, but that ineffable magic called cinema.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The picture has an unsettling, haunting quality that I haven't been able to shake.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
The performances are solid and subtle, with Depardieu growing nicely into the brooding, smarter-than-he-looks roles his father tackled for years.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
A typically hypnotic, slow-coiling drama from 80-year-old French filmmaker, Jacques Rivette.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Rivette brings a refreshing realism to what could have been a stodgy costume drama, it's still pretty slow going.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
If anything, as it lathers up into an abortive attempt at scarlet-woman branding and a goofy siege on the nunnery where a dazed and confused Antoinette has holed up, The Duchess of Langeais works best as the comic bondage fantasy implied in its deliciously sly French title: "Don't Touch the Axe."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The film's a minuet fetishistically repeated until either the audience or the lovers go crazy. I'd say it was a tie.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
Jacques Rivette's film is full of painstaking historical detail, but the behavior of the two nonlovers is mired in inaction and emotionally incomprehensible.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.1 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
