Bluebeard Reviews

Breillat's ideas owes much to Angela Carter, yet The Bloody Chamber author would surely be depressed by the lack of dynamism on display.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Murky and cold, this retelling of the fairy tale has an effectively grim tone that cleverly plays with our expectations while examining some provocative themes. But it's not very engaging.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Catherine Breillat's move from arthouse provocations to ponderous period dramas continues with this austere, slyly experimental adaptation of Charles Perrault's grisly classic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

While it contains more layers than a slab of Viennetta, this might actually be Breillat's most accessible film to date. Just don't expect anyone to live happily ever after.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

It's a playful approach, but Breillat's flat visual style and the deliberately stiff and austere performances she gets from her actors make this more of a chore than it should be.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Complex, comic and discomfiting. So, vintage Breillat...

| Original Score: 4/5

Breillat's chamber-piece of oblique eroticism is beautifully designed and acted but rendered slightly unsatisfying by a pointless second level of narrative reality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Taking itself too seriously is just the first of many grave offences committed by the wretched Bluebeard.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5

It's a surreal little film with an intriguing Freudian subtext and a haunting blend of magic and gritty realism.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

What's most surprising about this adaptation is how free of violence it is: rather than embrace its potential for serial-killer bloodlust, [Breillat] has produced a witty, graceful and unusually tender reading of the story.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Catherine Breillat delivers a new spin on an old tale that doesn't underestimate the female spirit.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Breillat has produced her funniest and most immediately pleasurable film to date.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

We end with a head on a platter. But the head is oddly bloodless, like the whole film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

The disconcerting saga springs two particularly nasty surprises, even if the "modern" segment doesn't quite work.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Breillat's simplistic, spare approach pays dividends, particularly harnessed to sympathetic playing from the two girls, particularly Creton.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Breillat directs the Bluebeard story line with a deliberate flatness, like a literal retelling, where all the actors appear stiff

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

A moody fantasia of barely repressed compulsions and desire.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Breillat directs it more like a rarefied period drama than a fantasy, stirred with poetic touches and offbeat humor and dark twists...

Full Review

[S]omething very different and, as usual for the filmmaker, very fresh.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

A simple device, the parallel structure freshens and enlarges the familiar story precisely because Breillat doesn't put too much weight on it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4