The picture wanders a bit, but every so often the master unleashes something very cool -- such as an ominous birdcage looming in the foreground -- that snaps us back in.
Comment
11/17/03
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The Flower of Evil (2003)
64
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:59
Fresh:38
Rotten:21
Average Rating:6.2/10
Theatrical Release:Oct 10, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: Claude Chabrol's 50th feature, THE FLOWER OF EVIL, feels like familiar territory for this New Wave master. A cryptic opening scene, in which the camera floats through abandoned rooms of the... [More]
Starring: Nathalie Baye, Benoit Magimel, Bernard Lecoq, Suzanne Flon
Director: Claude Chabrol
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Reviews for The Flower of Evil
Told without drama, as if this were just an ordinary family, it is the subtleties of the details that win you over.
11/28/03
One of Chabrol's lesser works.
11/16/03
While it's not quite as satisfying as his underappreciated Merci pour le chocolat (2000), it's still nasty fun at the expense of the upper middle class.
10/10/03
Top CriticLeave reason behind, back in steerage class, and simply breathe in the foibles of the (upper) crust on this crème brûlée.
01/09/04
Top CriticThe Flower of Evil is a fascinating exploration of how messy family secrets can spoil people's lives down through the generations.
10/09/03
The 73-year-old Chabrol has dashed off a near-abstract but infinitely intriguing formulation on guilt, recurrence and the perpetual present.
10/13/03
Top CriticChabrol continues his slide into quaint, comfortable insignificance with his umpteenth treatment of a theme--he's become sort of a French Ozu, if you will, but with murder.
10/20/03
The slightness of Chabrol’s latest work, for all its machinations of murder and scandal, keeps ["The Flower of Evil"] from being much more than an OK effort by the master.
11/06/03
fans of Chabrol should find small pleasures in one of his lesser works
11/02/03
There's a solid message here about wealth and hypocrisy, but it's watered down by the opaque storytelling.
07/11/04
A minor work from a major talent.
11/20/03
Top CriticMediocre melodrama - if you take away all the talk about incest, rape and murder there would be about ten minutes of door-to-door campaigning and a couple of dinner parties.
11/07/03
Claude Chabrol gives ample opportunity for his audience to take pokes at those whacky French.
10/07/03
Uninteresting characters, slow storytelling and the deadly dullness of the film's overall talky quality ... take away any potential sting that the Gallic helmer had envisioned for his big-screen critique.
10/05/03
I feel such an affection for Chabrol and his work that I probably can't see The Flower of Evil as it would be experienced by a first-time viewer.
11/07/03
Top CriticSo much of the plot is conveyed in subtitled dialogue and so little of the action takes place in scene that moviegoers will likely experience the tale secondhand.
10/23/03
The film is a bore.
11/21/03
This the master at his best.
10/10/03
The not-so-wicked melodramas that ensue bring to mind a tame revue of V.C. Andrews’ garden-themed Flowers in the Attic series.
09/25/03
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