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Vénus beauté (institut)
Metascore
64 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    There is a sophistication about affairs of the heart, about the wisdom and the risks of romantic involvement that is more than quintessentially French. It's irresistible as well.
  2. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    75
    Baye gives a stunning performance in the central role, backed by a first-rate supporting cast.
  3. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    A pink-collar "Sex and the City" made urgent by the performance of Nathalie Baye.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    75
    It's all glossy urban fairy-tale stuff, laid on with style to spare, given added resonance by a mini-pantheon of French movie goddesses.
  5. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Athima Chansanchai
    75
    Love, however implausible, is simply beautiful in Venus.
    All this publication's reviews
  6. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    75
    At its best when it remains with the women, and Marshall draws marvelous performances from all.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    70
    A beautifully acted slice of intersecting lives defined and driven by the business of beauty.
  8. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    70
    Lets you indulge your taste for soapy heartache without leaving you feeling that you have to wash the bubbles out of your mouth.
  9. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    70
    Director Tonie Marshall has taken a very simple story and laced it with potent details that make the film a rich map of her lead character's inner life.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Amy Taubin
    70
    Thanks to some brilliant casting, Venus Beauty Institute provokes ideas about women, movies, sexuality, and age that extend beyond its frothy fiction.
  11. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    70
    At its core is a feminine realm (the beauty parlor) through which modern issues of alienation and casual-sex-as-a-drug are coupled with timeless questions about the natures of love and desire.
  12. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    67
    Clever and smooth, yet, like Angèle herself (or Nathalie Baye), the film is almost too placid for its own good.
  13. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    63
    It's hard not to feel empowered by Nathalie Baye.
  14. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    63
    Slight but entertaining and occasionally touching.
  15. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Michael Atkinson
    62
    Mature and adroitly performed but ultimately underachieving.
  16. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    60
    A pretty good chronicle of a certain phase of French working-class life.
  17. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Kim Morgan
    58
    Marshall does such a good job re-creating the otherworldly energy of a temple of youth that the rest of the picture feels strained and sometimes trite. Nevertheless, parts can be absorbing, reflective and touching.
  18. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    50
    Has occasional moments of heat, but not much warmth. And while it is pretty enough to look at, real beauty eludes it.
  19. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    40
    Warmed my heart about as much as the cold cream Angèle slathers all over her wrinkling clients.
    All this critic's reviews
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