Gabrielle (2005)
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 53
Fresh: 40 | Rotten: 13
Patrice Chéreau's exquisite rendering of Joseph Conrad's The Return brings underlying passions to surface in a long-suffering marriage.
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 4
Patrice Chéreau's exquisite rendering of Joseph Conrad's The Return brings underlying passions to surface in a long-suffering marriage.
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Average Rating: 2.7/5
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A seemingly ideal marriage is thrown into embarrassing turmoil in Patrice Chéreau's period drama, Gabrielle. Based on the short story The Return by Joseph Conrad, the film opens with Jean (Pascal Greggory) extolling the virtues of his pretty wife, Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert), in voice-over as he makes his way home from work. Jean and his wife, with help from their team of servants, have fostered the illusion of a perfect bourgeois household. Jean is particularly happy with the way Gabrielle
Jul 14, 2006 Limited
Dec 19, 2006
$89.7k
IFC First Take
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All Critics (60) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (13) | DVD (4)
Although it is possible that French actress Isabelle Huppert makes the occasional false move, she does not make them in front of a camera.
Top CriticThis is a careful and cinematic adaptation that rings with painful truth.
For the most part, [Chereau] lets Huppert and Greggory provide the emotional impact. They respond accordingly, imbuing their mutual suffering with an exacting and moving finesse.
Chereau matches Conrad's insistence on psychological accuracy, burrowing through the protective layers of self-delusion that hold so many human relationships together.
Husband and wife, upper-class couple Jean and Gabrielle Hervey, are played, to perfection, by two of France's premier film actors: Pascal Greggory and Isabelle Huppert.
Greggory is up to that journey, revealing the character in his various colors, and Huppert is at her usual best, subtle, emotionally full, focused and honest.
A work of stunning intensity underneath opulent fabrics
Both protagonists give elegant and moving performances.
far greater insight, analysis and reflection than is normally found in dvd extras.
A film that matches all too well the times it portrays, Gabrielle is claustrophobic, stifling, and not a little crusty. Saved only by its exquisitely bitter performances and immaculate design.
Rewards those who stay with it...at least those who use terms like deconstruction.
Those who love Chéreau should not miss this exquisite chamber drama.
Co-screenwriter/director Patrice Chereau doesn't seem in any particular hurry with the pacing. He practically dawdles, which makes the whole thing feel longer than its relatively scant running time.
Chronically impassive and faultlessly incurious about others, Gabrielle has been, for ten years, the perfect ornament of a social circle where 'emotion and failure are feared more than war.'
Most of all, we think, 'Gosh, all of these experiments make for a cold, uninvolving film.'
A shocking, brilliantly original rumination on the subject of marital rot.
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[font=Century Gothic]But Gabrielle soon returns. And everybody lives happily ever after, right?[/font]
[font=Century Gothic]With "Gabrielle", director Patrice Chereau pulls out all the stops in telling this devastatingly powerful tale of marriage which is based on "The Return" by Joseph Conrad. In the brief time we spend with Gabrielle and Jean, we get a very good idea of what their marriage is like...and it isn't pretty, starting with Jean considering Gabrielle little more than a possession and a key to the perfect life he imagines for himself. But how does she feel about the situation? Isabelle Huppert gives another great, fearless performance and Pascal Greggory keeps pace with her. [/font]