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Last Mistress, The
IFC Films


7.2

based on 25 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 4 votes
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Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Asia Argento, Fu'ad Ait Aattou, Roxane Mesquida, Claude Sarraute, and Yolande Moreau

The Last Mistress marks the monumental pairing of cinema's premiere provocateur, director Catherine Breillat with the most fearless and explosive actor of our generation, Asia Argento. A penniless rogue, Ryno de Marigny, shocks 19th century France with his engagement to the virginal gem of the aristocracy, Hermangarde. As lurid speculations of Ryno's ten year affair with the carnal Vellini manifest, a supremely erotic and wickedly humorous depiction of human lust is revealed - overriding the brittle facade of nobility and reverence. Bolstered by Breillat's mastery of the medium and Argento's commanding performance, The Last Mistress is a highly entertaining yet incredibly provocative film that has resulted in unanimous praise from audiences and critics across the world. (IFC Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Catherine Breillat
DIRECTED BY:	Catherine Breillat
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: June 27, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	104 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France \| Italy
LANGUAGE(S):	French

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...

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Breillat, the flamethrower who made "Romance" and "Fat Girl," artfully twists period-piece drama to suit her provocative modern notions about sex, gender roles, and power.

Los Angeles Times Robert Abele

The Catherine Breillat-directed period piece is an extreme cinematic pleasure, a well-told yarn of merciless desire.

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

Here Breillat directs one of the most thrilling actresses working today, and the latter makes this calculated study into a tale brimming with passion and sorrow.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A highly entertaining adaptation of French dandy Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's mid-19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

What’s explicit here is ravenous passion and the depiction of desire as a creating, destroying force that invades the very flesh. It's terribly French.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This explicit movie about a sexually insatiable 19th century courtesan emerges like an erotic dream.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Beautifully composed, The Last Mistress, Breillat's 11th film, deals with the theme she has put forth in such previous work as "Romance" and "Fat Girl": how women deal with sexual desire.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The picture's visual style is clean, exact and beautifully photographed by Yorgos Arvanitis.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Under the beautifully appointed costumes and to-die-for interiors is Breillat's preoccupation with female sexuality and desire, all centered on a blistering performance from a perfectly cast Asia Argento.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A passionate and explicit film about sexual obsession.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee

The Last Mistress proves that Breillat has found something in the luscious language of the 19th century that makes sense to us today.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The Last Mistress turns the melodramatic pieties of films like Fatal Attraction inside out. The anti-heroine acts like a vampire in reverse: Even when she drinks the anti-hero's blood, she makes him feel more alive.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Given their reputations as feminist provocateurs, the coming together of Breillat and Argento seems natural, even inevitable, and The Last Mistress gets a charge from their feisty, uncompromising spirit.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Decorous to a fault, in the manner of middling Eric Rohmer talkfests, it's a film that could use some shaking up.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Lush. Debauched. Ravishing. And did I mention sexy?

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

What's different here is the setting: Instead of modern-day misogyny, the heroine of The Last Mistress is up against its 19th-century version.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Cool, carnal, and lethal, The Last Mistress is a period drama with a difference.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Breillat is inviting us to really look at sex as it occurs in life, and to engage with it mentally, as a driving mystery of human existence.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Argento and Aattou deliver appropriately outsize performances to fit the movie's sense of extravagant escapism, and Claude Sarraute delivers a slyly witty performance as the elderly lady carried away by Ryno's Scheherazade-like tale.

Variety Lisa Nesselson

Adapting a book by semi-notorious novelist and critic Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-89), Breillat freely stamps her strong and singular feminine insights on a man's material.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Though Argento and Aattou lack the searing chemistry needed, the social politics are consistently intriguing, and everything - not to mention everyone -looks absolutely stunning.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Breillat may be serious about creating period ambience, but she also can't resist patterning her heroine after Marlene Dietrich's Concha in "The Devil Is a Woman" (even though Argento sometimes suggests Maria Montez in the pleasure she takes in her own company).

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Seems like very tame stuff, with little in the way of graphic sex and all the baggage of a run-of-the-mill art-house costume drama.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Perhaps it's the lack of sex or perhaps it's the incessant, banal chattering of the characters, but this movie is more likely to inspire sleep than interest. Breillat has done something I never expected from her: made a boring film.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It wouldn't feel out of place on a double bill with "Dangerous Liaisons," given Breillat's unrepentantly nihilistic attitude toward the battle of the sexes in which all are pawns, every knight is errant, and the only queen is Queen Bitch.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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Last Mistress, The IFC Films

Last Mistress, The
IFC Films