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In Praise of Love
Metascore
62 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 27 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 27
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 27
  3. Negative: 5 out of 27
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  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    100
    Like most Godard, it can be watched repeatedly, always yielding new secrets and beauties. Most profound of all, perhaps, are those incredible black-and-white images of Paris.
  2. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    Witty, contemplative, and sublimely beautiful.
  3. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    100
    An elusive and profoundly moving essay about the stages of amour and of age. Like the best of Godard's movies -- and I haven't been sucked into one since "Passion" (1982) -- it is visually ravishing, penetrating, impenetrable.
  4. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: John Powers
    90
    In its formal daring and exquisite style, the movie is itself an act of resistance against what Godard sees as a modern triumphalist culture that turns historical truth to lies and love to images created to make money.
  5. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    90
    A sustained immersion in gorgeously austere street photography and casual portraiture, the images punctuated by bits of black leader and gnomic intertitles, the action propelled by sweetly pulverized music and an effortlessly layered soundtrack of enigmatic conversations. Poetry is really the only word for it.
  6. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    90
    Godard has always made films that are as thrilling for their ideas and ideals as for the sheer beauty of their images; the difference here is that for the first time in years he's more interested in turning us on than in turning us off.
  7. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    90
    I don't pretend to understand a darned thing about Jean-Luc Godard's In Praise of Love...But it's undeniably powerful and, if you're up for the experience, exhilarating.
  8. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    80
    This is a twilight film, full of sorrow yet lyrical, beautiful, and dark.
  9. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    75
    For all its bile and incoherence, In Praise of Love is filled with haunting images and insights. Godard may be a lion in winter, but the lion still roars.
  10. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    Think of it as the rantings of a grouchy old man (he's 71) who for half a century has resisted all efforts to dumb down his movies, insisting instead on making them HIS way and no other.
  11. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Curiel
    75
    A film that has unusual expectations from its audience -- and that's a welcome relief.
  12. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    70
    Brimming with ideas, aphorisms, diatribes, film clips and even bits of a story, the film's a gorgeous muddle that somehow manages to leave one both baffled and deeply satisfied.
  13. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    70
    Godard's artistry -- the way his scenes are at once archly stylized and informal, the quick precision of his eye -- is unarguable. But the beautiful images and solemn words cannot disguise the slack complacency of his vision.
  14. Variety
    Reviewed by: Derek Elley
    70
    The film offers a frequently obscure but (for fans) always watchable look at history, memory and -- in the most rarefied sense -- love.
  15. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    70
    To my eyes, the whole thing past in a blur of fabulous collage. [2 September 2002, p. 152]
    All this critic's reviews
  16. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Keith Phipps
    60
    Its gloomy speculations on the ephemeral nature of art are paradoxically not easily forgotten, and Godard's daring again pays off, or at least comes close enough to get credit for trying.
  17. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    50
    It's a diary, collage, meditation, elegy. But, unless you're going for a Ph.D. in code-breaking, it's also a bore.
  18. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    50
    At one point in ''Praise,'' Godard mentions that the Bois de Boulogne, the Parisian park, is all that's left of the French forests from the time of the Roman conquest. In Praise of Love, glowing like an ember, is all that's left of genius.
  19. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    50
    Godard, as always, sounds full of insight, yet he uses the past to damn the present in a way that may be reflexively self-serving. In Praise of Love leaves a taste as bitter as poison ash.
  20. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    50
    Gives no indication that Jean-Luc Godard has anything left to say that is worth hearing, no indication that he has any drive or passion to continue making movies. What's on the screen is habit -- accomplished, rote, empty.
  21. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    42
    The bitterness of the film is a far cry from the peppy young Godard's embrace of life -- and a very far cry indeed from either praise or love.
  22. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    40
    I found myself staring at his new one, In Praise of Love (Éloge de l'Amour), in a state of rapt annoyance and befuddlement. It's constructed in two sections, which are far more fractured and opaque than the simple description I will here try to set out.
  23. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    30
    In all honesty I'd advise you to go rent the stunning (and brand-new) DVD of the director's great "Le Mépris (Contempt)," which seems to me to be much more Godardian and much less hopeless.
  24. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    30
    Maybe the easiest thing would be to skip the movie altogether. Godard has created such a hermetic, uncompromising world that only the hardiest cinematic spelunkers are likely to appreciate its depths.
  25. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    25
    I see so little there: It is all remembered rote work, used to conceal old tricks, facile name-calling, the loss of hope, and emptiness.
  26. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Marta Barber
    25
    Not only does the fragmented delivery become trying, but also the behind-the-camera dialogue and city shots with heavy Parisian traffic numb the senses. And as beautiful as it looks, there's really nothing new coming out of the lens of the revered Godard.
  27. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Gregory Weinkauf
    10
    Rarely does an established filmmaker so ardently waste viewers' time with a gobbler like this -- it's pretty shocking that this thing isn't even artsy. Barring a few brief moments of instantaneously fizzling inspiration, it's merely fartsy.
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