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Private Property
Metascore
78 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 11
  3. Negative: 0 out of 11
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    100
    An impeccably acted character drama revolving around a mother and her teenage twin sons, Private Property shows how strong and how terrifying the bonds within families can be. Directed by Belgium's Joachim Lafosse, it etches the line between love and hate with a savagery that is almost unprecedented.
  2. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    What draws us into Private Property is how so many things happen under the surface, never commented upon.
  3. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    83
    Like many French films of its kind, Private Property remains content to simply observe a situation without tidying up the narrative, which in this case leaves some big questions unanswered. But Lafosse knows that problems that beg for a resolution sometimes don't get one.
  4. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    80
    Private Property embraces the banal and the monstrous, and affords Ms. Huppert opportunity to astonish rather than overwhelm.
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Jay Weissberg
    80
    Boasting a script so clear and airtight that shrinks could use it for family therapy courses, the sole caveat is the unrelenting unpleasantness of the stronger-willed son.
  6. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    75
    Lafosse's frustrating, yet beautifully elegiac coda emphasizes the point that his production and storytelling style have been making throughout: Private Property is about processes, not conclusions.
  7. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    Huppert is, as usual, superb, proving yet again that she is the finest actress working in France today.
  8. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    75
    Lafosse's razor sharp dissection of relationships strained to the breaking point is hypnotic in a road-accident kind of way.
  9. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    70
    Pascale is the movie's most defined character, and its most repugnant. Whatever sympathy we can muster for her boils down to Huppert's richly layered portrayal.
  10. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Andrea Gronvall
    70
    Isabelle Huppert gets a respite from her usual ice queen roles with this shattering psychological drama about the danger of children staying too long in the nest.
  11. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    63
    The performances are impeccable, but while director Joachim Lafosse carefully creates an atmosphere of suffocating dread, he could have let a little more air into this simmering hothouse.
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