Venus Beauty Institute

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

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.

Baltimore Sun Athima Chansanchai

Love, however implausible, is simply beautiful in Venus.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A pink-collar "Sex and the City" made urgent by the performance of Nathalie Baye.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

At its best when it remains with the women, and Marshall draws marvelous performances from all.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Baye gives a stunning performance in the central role, backed by a first-rate supporting cast.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A beautifully acted slice of intersecting lives defined and driven by the business of beauty.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

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.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Lets you indulge your taste for soapy heartache without leaving you feeling that you have to wash the bubbles out of your mouth.

Village Voice Amy Taubin

Thanks to some brilliant casting, Venus Beauty Institute provokes ideas about women, movies, sexuality, and age that extend beyond its frothy fiction.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Clever and smooth, yet, like Angèle herself (or Nathalie Baye), the film is almost too placid for its own good.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Slight but entertaining and occasionally touching.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

It's hard not to feel empowered by Nathalie Baye.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Mature and adroitly performed but ultimately underachieving.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

A pretty good chronicle of a certain phase of French working-class life.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

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.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Has occasional moments of heat, but not much warmth. And while it is pretty enough to look at, real beauty eludes it.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Warmed my heart about as much as the cold cream Angèle slathers all over her wrinkling clients.