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Secret Things

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 20 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Directed by: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 2, 2004
DVD: November 23, 2004
Running Time: 115 minutes, Color
Origin: France
Language(s): French (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Coralie Revel, Sabrina Seyvecou, Roger Mirmont, Fabrice Deville, Blandine Bury, Olivier Soler, Viviane Théophildès, and Dorothée Picard
After they are both fired, two penniless but shapely young French women set out to climb the social ladder by manipulating men.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Exterminating Angels
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Though his work has been little seen outside of France, writer-director Jean-Claude Brisseau's reputation as one of the most terribles of his country's filmmaking enfants precedes him. This 2002 film offers ample evidence as to why.
Read Full Review >Variety Lisa Nesselson
There's plenty for both the eyes and intellect to groove over in Secret Things, a taut, juicy, low-key feast of sexual and office politics filtered through helmer Jean-Claude Brisseau's customary blend of expedient formality and all-stops-out baroque behavior.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The sensationalistic beginning and needless mumbo-jumbo ending aside, this is a female buddy film with bite.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
A rare item these days: An erotic film made well enough to keep us interested. It's about beautiful people, has a lot of nudity, and the sex is as explicit as possible this side of porno.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dave Kehr
There is no denying the force of Mr. Brisseau's bizarre imagination and the personal conviction he brings to it.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Charles Taylor
Not a great movie, but its daring and seriousness, its refusal to take refuge in the sort of irony that diminishes whatever it touches, its willingness to risk ludicrousness, may be elements that are necessary to achieve greatness.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Cobbled together from borrowed parts, Jean-Claude Brisseau's Secret Things makes a fearsome Frankenstein monster out of other movies, yet the influences are so thoroughly digested that they come out seeming wholly original.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
I still can't decide whether it's a masterpiece of sexual provocation or just a really classy stroke film.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
It would be hard to mount a straight-faced defense of Brisseau's feverish moral tale, complete with a lurking angel of death, but the carnal machinations are hugely entertaining -- particularly if you like your skin with a bracing sermon chaser.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
While visually stylish and thematically ambitious, Secret Things is ultimately more preposterous than provocative, its vague explorations of sexual and class struggle failing to coalesce in a coherent manner.
Read Full Review >Empire David Parkinson
Stylish and gripping at times, this wry very-French gender satire is definitetly entertaining but falls down a little in the third act.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Skids into absurdity, but it never quite gets boring. Movies like this rarely are.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Neil LaBute on his worst day couldn't devise a scenario so primitive in its psychology and predictable in its sense of sin.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Mark Jenkins
A tolerably silly lark, decorated with lots of tasteful (and exclusively female) nudity. Yet as Christophe's role expands -- and the soundtrack's classical flourishes become more strident -- the film's plausibility plummets.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Hints at a place where desire, fear, pleasure, and power all intersect, but it never actually goes there.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
It’s Brisseau's penchant for the flamboyantly perverse and the perversely flamboyant, however, that might have been best left secret.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Gets more operatically farcical (most of it unintentionally so) by the minute.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
robert h. gave it a4:
Not just silly, transcends silly. but all of the actresses have nice boobs.
George B. gave it a 10:
I agree. This movie was awesome. Absolutely stunning. See this movie!!! 10/10
Jonathan L. gave it a 10:
Quite easily my favorite film of 2003. clever, wise and entirely entertaining. only sexually self aware people need apply.
