Metascore

Mixed or average reviews - based on 11 Critics What's this?

  • Summary: In this darkly erotic drama from cult filmmaker Jeanne Labrune, Isabelle Huppert stars as a high-class prostitute named Alice who serves up sexual fantasies for her clientele, from schoolgirl innocence to S&M. Fed up with the seamy underbelly of French masculinity, Alice crosses paths with Xavier, a neurotic psychoanalyst facing a marriage crisis. The two quickly realize their professions share a thing or two in common as they navigate the overlapping worlds of psychotherapy and sex therapy. (First Run Features) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 11
  2. Negative: 1 out of 11
  1. Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    Sep 15, 2011
    80
    Special Treatment is a serious film, but Labrune allows a touch of dark comedy in her depictions of Alice's clients and Xavier's patients.
  2. Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    Aug 23, 2011
    50
    That's why Special Treatment is so disheartening. The film, starring Huppert, quickly telegraphs that its ideas are too shallow for a talent as deep as hers.
  3. Reviewed by: Joe Neumaier
    Aug 26, 2011
    20
    As clichés trot through their sessions - it's like "In Treatment" as bedroom farce - we check out. Huppert, though, is as fearless as ever.

See all 11 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. The movie introduces some interesting characters and possible plot directions, but it just feels extremely incomplete. It's in no way "erotic" as the product description states. It could have been so much fun - a prostitute seeing a psychotherapist seeing a prostitute, etc. But it's just neutered. The outline should have been fleshed out by a much better writer. Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

Trailers