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Last Mistress, The

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
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Movie Info
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
Summary
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)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
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...
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.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Robert Abele
The Catherine Breillat-directed period piece is an extreme cinematic pleasure, a well-told yarn of merciless desire.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
A highly entertaining adaptation of French dandy Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's mid-19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
This explicit movie about a sexually insatiable 19th century courtesan emerges like an erotic dream.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The picture's visual style is clean, exact and beautifully photographed by Yorgos Arvanitis.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A passionate and explicit film about sexual obsession.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Lush. Debauched. Ravishing. And did I mention sexy?
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Cool, carnal, and lethal, The Last Mistress is a period drama with a difference.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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).
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
