The technique is impressive.
Comment
05/31/02
Rate this Movie 
The Lady and the Duke (2002)
71
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work
Reviews Counted:70
Fresh:50
Rotten:20
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Visually stunning, The Lady and the Duke uses current technology to elegantly bring the past to life.
Theatrical Release:May 10, 2002 Limited
Box Office: $124,812
Synopsis: This visually breathtaking film from New Wave director Eric Rohmer uses hand-painted sets that depict 18th-century Paris, the English lady's home, and the surrounding countryside with a vivid... [More]
Starring: Lucy Russell, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Francois Marthouret, Leonard Cobiant
Director: Eric Rohmer
Get This Movie
Reviews for The Lady and the Duke
Top CriticWatching living actors interact against the lush, studied inertia of the backdrops gives us the impression of history come to life, or statues magically transformed into living creatures.
05/30/02
Top CriticTalky, artificial and opaque...an interesting technical exercise, but a tedious picture.
05/28/02
The film has almost nothing much to offer a viewer who doesn't already have a historian's keen interest in the minutiae of 1792 Paris politics.
05/26/02
Any film by Rohmer deserves to be celebrated, and I can't dismiss this one simply because it dares to be difficult.
05/24/02
Seeing the paint actually dry, however, would probably be more fun than most of this overly expository film.
05/24/02
Top CriticThe laser-projected paintings provide a spell-casting beauty, while Russell and Dreyfus are a romantic pairing of hearts, preciously exposed as history corners them.
05/24/02
Rohmer true to form with Lady.
05/24/02
Top CriticA plodding look at the French Revolution through the eyes of aristocrats.
05/17/02
... the texture is startling: a past filtered through our most common visual window on the age.
05/16/02
... a fascinating curiosity piece -- fascinating, that is, for about ten minutes. After that it becomes long and tedious like a classroom play in a college history course.
05/15/02
When the painted backdrops in a movie are more alive than its characters, you know you're in trouble.
05/15/02
Top CriticI found this to be really deadly dull.
05/13/02
Top CriticCultivated? Sure it is. Respectable? You bet. And now the honest part. Terminally dull? Uh huh.
05/12/02
Click to read the article
05/11/02
This fascinating experiment plays as more of a poetic than a strict reality, creating an intriguing species of artifice that gives The Lady and the Duke something of a theatrical air.
05/10/02
Top CriticDespite its lavish formalism and intellectual austerity, the film manages to keep you at the edge of your seat with its shape-shifting perils, political intrigue and brushes with calamity.
05/10/02
Top CriticIt's ... worth the extra effort to see an artist, still committed to growth in his ninth decade, change while remaining true to his principles with a film whose very subject is, quite pointedly, about the peril of such efforts.
05/10/02
Some stunning visuals -- and some staggeringly boring cinema.
05/10/02
It doesn't look real, but it looks marvelously unreal, a perfect marriage of low and high tech.
05/10/02
What’s Hot On RT
Fresh Links
Featured
MSN's Year in Review 
Take a look at MSN's choices for the Top 10 films of 2009.
40 Best Films of the 2000s
Last week, Moviefone offered us their worst films of the 2000s. Now see their 40 best!
Tarantino's Characters
Hollywood.com explores why QT's characters resonate so well with audiences.
Top 10 Movies of 2009
TIME chimes in with their own list of the best films released this year.
Top 20 of the Decade
Click through to see which movies BuzzSugar placed in their Best-of-Decade list!
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter
Get the latest Tomatometer updates on upcoming movies!
IGN RSS Feeds