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Private Fears in Public Places
IFC First Take


6.0

based on 18 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 2 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Sabine Azéma, Lambert Wilson, André Dussollier, Pierre Arditi, Laura Morante, and Isabelle Carré

Six people collide and influence each other's lives in significant ways as they navigate the cold winter months in Paris. (IFC Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Jean-Michel Ribes Alan Ayckbourn (play)
DIRECTED BY:	Alain Resnais
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: April 13, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	120 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France / Italy
LANGUAGE(S):	French (with English subtitles)

Original titles "Coeurs"; Nominated, Golden Lion, 2006 Venice Film Festival

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

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Alain Resnais' 2006 adaptation of a British play by Alan Ayckbourn is a world apart from his earlier Ayckbourn adaptation, "Smoking/No Smoking"; that film tried to be as "English" as possible. But this time Resnais looks for precise French equivalents to British culture, and what emerges is one of his most personal works, intermittently recalling the melancholy "Muriel" and "Providence."

100

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Resnais employs all the tools of studio-bound moviemaking, silent-era to post-modern, in a way that is not only is consistently dazzling in a purely visual sense, but contains an empathy that lifts the picture to tragic heights even at those points at which it seems practically weightless.

100

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A masterpiece by any measure, is fresh, immediate and contemporary, but its wintry yet warm perspective is suffused with the wisdom and experience of a great filmmaker who turns 85 on June 2.

100

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The cast is tremendous; these actors work with Resnais like a well-oiled stock company that knows every trick and can communicate almost telepathically.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It's a Parisian romantic roundelay with sundry couples connecting and disconnecting, but it looks and sounds like no sex comedy ever made: It's transcendentally yummy.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Resnais and Ayckbourn care primarily about observing these characters' private and public faces, who they are and who they present themselves as. To that end, they've achieved a mood of enchanting intimacy.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The grand old filmmaker frames each scene like a fine painting. And fake snow falls with happy artificiality between rueful vignettes.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The film is accessible, pleasant, dreamy, a touch goofy and melancholic. Its modernist gestures are little more than stylistic tics, but there's an image of snow falling on two clasped hands that is almost rapturous. The role of the artist remains, for Mr. Resnais, the role of a lifetime.

Village Voice Jim Ridley

Resnais is now 84 years old; perhaps it takes eight decades of living to make a movie this compassionate, this confident--and this young.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

Clever, wise and witty.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Resnais cuts constantly between the various narrative threads, signaling each change of scene with a superimposed shower of snowflakes; it's a highly artificial device, and a deceptively lovely one that reinforces the sense that all Ayckbourn's characters are slowly succumbing to an emotional chill.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

This is a minor film from a master, which is disappointing, but nevertheless it has its charms, most notably in the acting by a cast of stage and screen veterans.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The film is beautifully shot and edited, but these emotional snapshots won't stay long in the memory.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Private Fears says that life is a smoldering holding pattern, but Resnais is gracious enough to blanket the embers with eternal snow.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The picture is so suavely made that we don't feel disappointed until it is over: what chiefly holds us is the quality of the acting.

Variety Jay Weissberg

Despite a perfect cast of Resnais regulars plus the master's own impeccable crafting, the characters fail to grip, and with approximately 50 short scenes, development comes in fits and starts.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

I found the interlocking bitterness of Ayckbourn's play irritating and overly neat, and these people don't seem to belong to Paris or London or anywhere else, at least not anytime in the last 20 years.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Suffers from Resnais' inability to open it up and give it the look and pulse of a film.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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Private Fears in Public Places IFC First Take

Private Fears in Public Places
IFC First Take