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Reviews Counted:30
Fresh:21
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Private Property overcomes its slow pace with tight direction from Joachim Lafosse and an intriguing performance from Isabelle Huppert.
Theatrical Release:May 18, 2007 Limited
Rhythmically, narratively and emotionally propulsive, this Joachim Lafosse film finds the almost predictably magnificent Isabelle Huppert as a woman of a certain age, trying to swim to the surface with a weight around her leg -- make that two weights.
Top CriticSometimes the path of excess leads not to the tower of wisdom, but to exhaustion.
Intense and very involving drama by Belgian director Joachim Lafosse.
Lafosse gives it an arbitrary rest without clearing up a few mysteries, which unfortunately means he doesn't have to acknowledge or deal with them.
A tightly structured family drama that accurately portrays the domestic wars that can drive family members apart.
Brilliantly acted but oppressively dour.
Private Property has the pulse of an emotional thriller, but without commercial cinema’s usual shrieking violins and storytelling beats.
Top CriticThanks to the acuity of their performances, the old adage “You always hurt the ones you love” rings new and true.
What draws us into "Private Property" is how so many things happen under the surface, never commented upon. At any given moment, we cannot say for sure what the characters fully feel, since they often act at right angles to their emotions.
Top CriticHuppert's state of dead-end panic during one scene is an example of how she keeps the story at a human level, preventing it from becoming some stale and intellectual homily about female emancipation.
[Director] Lafosse's razor sharp dissection of relationships strained to the breaking point is hypnotic in a road-accident kind of way.
The conflicts that unfold within this both familiar and eccentric family provide a portrait of such delicacy and dramatic illumination, that one can almost forgive Lafosse for yet another bad mommy blame game on screen when it comes to society's ills.
The story is often mesmerizing, even when the pace is slow and little action appears to occur. Yet after so much terrific buildup, the denouement is a letdown.
Huppert is, as usual, superb, proving yet again that she is the finest actress working in France today.
Top CriticSave the effort by asking the neighbours if you can come round for ten minutes every night for a week. A wet week. Before pay day.
There's not a wasted word and the performances are impressive in Joachim Lafosse's hugely impressive film.
[Director] Lafosse's frustrating, yet beautifully elegiac coda emphasizes the point that his production and storytelling style have been making throughout: Private Property is about processes, not conclusions.
Top CriticHuppert is superb, her lonely heroine both sympathetically vulnerable and yet also slightly culpable for her sons' terribly selfish behaviour.
Lafosse has made a mordant movie beyond genres -- and one that is too mesmerizing to miss.
Top CriticA well-conceived, understated and nuanced dysfunctional family drama.
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