Bridesmaid, The (La Demoiselle d'Honneur)

Miami Herald Marta Barber

The touch of sharp and edgy storytelling has returned to French master Claude Chabrol.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A classic of realistic terror, in which passion and murder can't lie buried.

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.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Deceptively understated and finally ferocious.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Claude Chabrol has a wonderful way of making audiences nervous.

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."

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.

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.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

A prickly, twisted, mean-spirited, borderline crazy and highly seductive picture.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A merrily macabre things-we-do-for-love yarn.