| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
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.
|
| 75 |
Baltimore Sun
Athima Chansanchai
Love, however implausible, is simply beautiful in Venus.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
A pink-collar "Sex and the City" made urgent by the performance of Nathalie Baye.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
At its best when it remains with the women, and Marshall draws marvelous performances from all.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Baye gives a stunning performance in the central role, backed by a first-rate supporting cast.
|
| 75 |
Boston Globe
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.
|
| 70 |
TV Guide
A beautifully acted slice of intersecting lives defined and driven by the business of beauty.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
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.
|
| 70 |
Salon.com
Lets you indulge your taste for soapy heartache without leaving you feeling that you have to wash the bubbles out of your mouth.
|
| 70 |
Village Voice
Thanks to some brilliant casting, Venus Beauty Institute provokes ideas about women, movies, sexuality, and age that extend beyond its frothy fiction.
|
| 70 |
LA Weekly
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.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
Clever and smooth, yet, like Angèle herself (or Nathalie Baye), the film is almost too placid for its own good.
|
| 63 |
New York Post
Slight but entertaining and occasionally touching.
|
| 63 |
New York Daily News
It's hard not to feel empowered by Nathalie Baye.
|
| 62 |
Mr. Showbiz
Mature and adroitly performed but ultimately underachieving.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
A pretty good chronicle of a certain phase of French working-class life.
|
| 58 |
Portland Oregonian
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.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
Has occasional moments of heat, but not much warmth. And while it is pretty enough to look at, real beauty eludes it.
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
Warmed my heart about as much as the cold cream Angèle slathers all over her wrinkling clients.
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