DVD
Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Recent DVD/Video Releases
58
Adam Resurrected
65
Adoration
42
Aliens in the Attic
56
American Violet
44
Answer Man, The
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil![]()
58
Away We Go
54
Battle for Terra
55
Casi Divas
63
Cheri
83
Drag Me to Hell![]()
76
Every Little Step
70
Fados
26
Filth and Wisdom
80
Food, Inc.
34
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
32
I Love You, Beth Cooper
50
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
81
Il Divo![]()
32
Land of the Lost
74
Lemon Tree
43
Love 'N Dancing
64
Lymelife
50
Management
63
Medicine for Melancholy
56
Monsters vs. Aliens
34
My Life in Ruins
48
Not Forgotten
76
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
50
Nothing Like the Holidays
26
Objective, The
54
Observe and Report
78
O'Horten
42
Orphan
48
Proposal, The
40
Shrink
55
Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
88
Tulpan![]()
66
Unmistaken Child
45
Whatever Works
34
Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Bridesmaid, The (La Demoiselle d'Honneur)

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 20 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign | Romance | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Claude Chabrol
Pierre Leccia
Ruth Rendell (novel)
Directed by: Claude Chabrol
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 4, 2006
DVD: March 20, 2007
Running Time: 110 minutes, Color
Origin: France / Germany / Italy
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Benoît Magimel, Laura Smet, Aurore Clément, Bernard Le Coq, Solène Bouton, Anna Mihalcea, Michel Duchaussoy, and Suzanne Flon
It's love at first sight when bridesmaid Senta falls into the life handsome young Philippe at the wedding of his younger sister. Though their passion for each other is as obvious as it is unquestionable, Philippe soon discovers that Senta's life is shrouded in mystery and her stories surrounding her past anything but believable. When one day she asks Philippe for a terrible proof of his love, Philippe must come to terms with who his lover might really be. But is this just another of Senta’s fantastic tales? And how far is Philippe willing to go, even as his love for her seems to know no limits? (First Run Features)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Comedy of Power Merci Pour le Chocolat The Flower of Evil
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Miami Herald Marta Barber
The touch of sharp and edgy storytelling has returned to French master Claude Chabrol.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A classic of realistic terror, in which passion and murder can't lie buried.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
The Bridesmaid goes slack at times, as it follows multiple Magimel family subplots, but as always, Chabrol stages everything with an elegant economy, moving the camera in short bursts that direct the eye but don't distract. Still, the movie would fail completely if not for the dynamic between the two leads.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Chabrol insured the power of this dangerously difficult film with perfect casting. The two lovers are so well acted that their story--and its finish--are incredibly convincing.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Chabrol arranges his story with a subtle, almost clinical accumulation. And it takes close attention to the movie's seemingly innocuous details to understand his deeper purposes.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Claude Chabrol makes his particular kind of unnerving, deliciously amoral thrillers look easy. Once you've made as many of them as he has, they probably are.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Chabrol's deliberate and drawn-out observations often work against the dramatic tension, but his gift is making the audience believe that emotion and obsession trump logic for these deluded characters.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
If The Bridesmaid is middle-drawer Chabrol, it's almost worth going to just to watch Laura Smet, a vamp of not-so-basic instinct.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Claude Chabrol has a wonderful way of making audiences nervous.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
The film flawlessly glides along as bodies start piling up. The finale brings to mind another Hitchcock film, "Psycho."
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The Bridesmaid is fairly familiar Chabrol country, an exploration of the psychological undercurrent of the bourgeoisie, with heavy helpings of black comedy.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
The film reveals its secrets slowly, and Chabrol tightens the screws not according to the rules of Hollywood suspense but with a cool, level gaze.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
A prickly, twisted, mean-spirited, borderline crazy and highly seductive picture.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
Based on the novel by Ruth Rendell, the film could do well with audiences who have a taste for creepy films about murder in the suburbs.
Read Full Review >Variety Deborah Young
At 74, Chabrol is in full possession of his talent for elegant, understated filmmaking, though he's far from his disturbing films of the '50s and '60s.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Chabrol sets us up, of course, which is half the fun, and the experience is a delight for lack of pomposity (his visual storytelling remains no-nonsense) as well as genre expertise.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
This 2004 French feature seems concerned not so much with the psychopathology of everyday life as with psychopaths who lurk behind the everyday.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The final payoff is a good one and relates to something tossed out in the film's opening minutes. Still, this is middling Chabrol, not as tight and suspenseful as his best work.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Paul K. gave it an8:
I enjoyed this on so many different levels. <***SPOILER****> The acting was consistantly good and although the story wasn't as solid as it could have been, the ambigous climatic ending was pitch perfect. If you have an interest, definitely see this in the theater or on video.
