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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
64
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69
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68
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54
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76
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xx
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50
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84
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41
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81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
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46
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28
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71
Frost/Nixon
82
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Girl Cut in Two, A
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84
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How About You
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72
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27
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Other End of the Line, The
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77
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53
RocknRolla
57
Sixty Six
85
Slumdog Millionaire
57
Special
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
67
Synecdoche, New York
82
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83
Trouble the Water
43
Tru Loved
83
U2 3D
59
We Are Wizards
55
What Just Happened?
89
Man on Wire
85
Slumdog Millionaire
84
Momma's Man
84
Christmas Tale, A
84
Happy-Go-Lucky
83
Trouble the Water
83
U2 3D
82
Tell No One
82
Rachel Getting Married
82
Frozen River
82
Let the Right One In
81
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
79
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains
78
I've Loved You So Long
77
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
76
Betrayal - Nerakhoon, The
75
Pool, The
73
Girl Cut in Two, A
72
I Served the King of England
71
Frost/Nixon
70
I.O.U.S. A
69
Ashes of Time Redux
69
Fear(s) of the Dark
68
August Evening
68
Hunger
67
Synecdoche, New York
64
Appaloosa
63
JCVD
63
Eden
63
Changeling
62
Duchess, The
59
We Are Wizards
57
Special
57
Sixty Six
56
Religulous
55
Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The
55
What Just Happened?
54
Battle in Seattle
54
Good Dick
53
RocknRolla
51
Morning Light
50
Breakfast with Scot
47
How About You
47
Choke
46
Dukes, The
43
Tru Loved
43
Gardens of the Night
41
Cthulhu
40
Igor
40
Other End of the Line, The
34
My Name Is Bruce
34
Otto; or Up with Dead People
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Hounddog
30
Guitar, The
28
Fireproof
27
Lake City
26
House of the Sleeping Beauties
26
Filth and Wisdom
xx
Dostana
xx
Black Balloon, The
xx
Let Them Chirp Awhile
xx
Local Color
xx
Nobel Son
xx
Extreme Movie
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Last Mistress, The
IFC Films
 |
|
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...
91
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.
90
Los Angeles Times
Robert Abele
The Catherine Breillat-directed period piece is an extreme cinematic pleasure, a well-told yarn of merciless desire.
90
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.
90
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
A highly entertaining adaptation of French dandy Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's mid-19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse.
90
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.
90
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
This explicit movie about a sexually insatiable 19th century courtesan emerges like an erotic dream.
88
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.
88
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
The picture's visual style is clean, exact and beautifully photographed by Yorgos Arvanitis.
88
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.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
A passionate and explicit film about sexual obsession.
88
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.
83
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.
83
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.
75
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.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Lush. Debauched. Ravishing. And did I mention sexy?
75
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.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Cool, carnal, and lethal, The Last Mistress is a period drama with a difference.
75
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.
70
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.
70
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.
60
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.
60
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).
50
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.
50
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.
50
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
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