X
- 2021
- Amazon Prime Video
- 2 h 2 m
- 2021
- Amazon Prime Video
- 2 h 2 m
Summary A woman who is unfairly institutionalized at Paris asylum plots to escape with the help of one of its nurses. Based on the novel 'Le bal des folles' by Victoria Mas.
Directed By: Mélanie Laurent
- 2021
- Amazon Prime Video
- 2 h 2 m
- 2021
- Amazon Prime Video
- 2 h 2 m
The Mad Women's Ball
72
5.6
Where to Watch
Summary A woman who is unfairly institutionalized at Paris asylum plots to escape with the help of one of its nurses. Based on the novel 'Le bal des folles' by Victoria Mas.
Directed By: Mélanie Laurent
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 14 Critic Reviews
72
86% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
14% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 14 Critic Reviews
72
86% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
14% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Laurent’s portrait of women pushed to the edge of society, exploited, and tortured for the sake of progress is uncompromising and fearless.
The director and star deftly juggles social commentary, genre tension, spookiness and some fabulous period costumes (courtesy of designer Maïra Ramedhan Levi).
Contrived and possibly overheated though the film might be at times, there is real storytelling gusto to it, and Laurent punches it across with relish.
The Mad Women’s Ball represents a noteworthy achievement for Laurent—a tremendously compelling, emotionally shattering period piece bearing at least three mighty performances from de Laâge, de Dietrich, and herself.
Laurent has made an elegant if overheated melodrama that amplifies the villainy of Charcot and his colleagues (one proves particularly appalling) to underscore how male-centered the medical establishment was — and is.
Laurent, an actress known Stateside for movies like Inglorious Basterds and Beginners, has adapted Ball from the bestselling novel by Victoria Mas, whose facts are rooted in actual history. She shares Mas' justifiable outrage at the casual inhumanity of it all — the brutal experiments and biased theories, the rampant physical and emotional abuse — and also her sense for melodrama.
The film capsizes in the absence of a compelling center for Mélanie Laurent to hang her directorial panache.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 9 User Ratings
5.6
22% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
78% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 9 User Ratings
5.6
22% Positive
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
78% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
