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Rois et Reine (Kings and Queen) (2004)

tomatometer

100

Average Rating: 8.1/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 0

A dryly comic, stylistically brave film.

audience

78

liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 2,694

My Rating

Movie Info

The stories of two desperate characters turn out to share an important link in this drama from French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin. Nora (Emmanuelle Devos) is a woman in her mid-thirties who wants people to believe that her life is going just the way she wants. But a look below the surface shows this isn't quite the case; she's been divorced twice, her latest relationship is on the rocks, her ten-year-old son, Elias (Valentin Lelong), is becoming increasingly withdrawn, and her father (Maurice

Nov 15, 2005

$0.2M

Wellspring

Cast

All Critics (61) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (7) | DVD (6)

Desplechin's big, bold, iconoclastic feature Rois et Reine is a disconcerting film that can turn your head at the oddest moments.

June 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Funny, absurd, often mocking itself and always quoting cultural history.

June 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

While these characters' lives are melodramatic, individual scenes burst with kinetic energy from fast editing and an script that deftly underscores the destructive nature of male-female relationships.

October 29, 2005 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Kings and Queen, full of passion and humor, madness and grief, is close to a masterpiece.

August 18, 2005 Comment
Philadelphia Inquirer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Kings and Queen is at times compelling, at times devastating, and at times long-winded.

August 18, 2005 Full Review Source: ReelViews | Comment
ReelViews
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's a puzzle of a film, but not the kind that intimidates you with inscrutability so much as one that beckons you into its antic eccentricity.

June 24, 2005 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A highly unstable compound of melodrama and offbeat comedy that elicits more shrugs of confusion than sighs of satisfaction

August 17, 2010 Full Review Source: Cinema Writer | Comment
Cinema Writer

a complex, character-driven film that never allows its themes - madness, love, coming of age - to become reducible to pat formulae, or over-sentimentalisation.

July 10, 2007 Full Review Source: Eye for Film | Comment
Eye for Film

Its novelistic breadth, pitched intensity and on-the-fly shooting style pull the viewer smack-dab into the middle of these lives.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

I can't quite get my head around it; Ismael is too cartoony and Nora is too icy.

March 10, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

[M]ixes with aplomb equal measures of intellectual screwball comedy and dark metaphysical tragedy, though part of the joke may be that one often can't tell which is which...

January 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | Comment
Flick Filosopher

the film proves, at the very least, that Desplechin is a director that garners due attention

December 2, 2005 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | Comment
Filmcritic.com

This is a first-rate melo-dramedy under the influence of director Arnaud Desplechin.

December 2, 2005 Comment
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Great filmmaking and, as does not always follow, a great film.

October 4, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | Comment
Film Freak Central

It is well-acted and written with a rigorous effort to skirt cliche, and it has the savor of real life throughout.

September 16, 2005 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

Heroic and absurdist...

September 2, 2005 Comment
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

There's a looseness to the camera work and storytelling that's appealingly breezy: This film feels, for better or worse, like real life.

August 26, 2005 Full Review Source: Seattle Times | Comment
Seattle Times

His scenes ripple with undercurrents of awkward emotions... creating a film both devastating and uplifting, but he passes no judgments.

August 25, 2005 Full Review Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Comment
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Rois et Reine (Kings and Queen)

"Kings and Queen" starts out with Nora(Emmanuelle Devos) introducing herself directly to the camera. She is 35, runs an art gallery and has a ten year old son, Elias, by her first husband. The first husband died while she was pregnant. Her second husband, Ismael(Mathieu Amalric), wants to be dead, too, at least

June 19, 2005
Harlequin68
Walter M.

Super Reviewer

An interesting film to be sure, and definitely worth a watch. Mathieu Amalric delivers a winning performance that shines above all else. This french melodrama again shines the dark and hidden side of a slice of life; what appears normal isnt and what appears happy and full may be in fact empty and sad. No real

March 27, 2010
alanjayh
alan jay

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Kings and Queen (Rois et reine) (DE)
  • Kings & Queen - Rois Et Reine (UK)
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