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Ma Mere,(Meine Mutter),(My Mother)

Ma Mere,(Meine Mutter),(My Mother) (2004)

tomatometer

0

Average Rating: 3.3/10
Critic Reviews: 15
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 15

Pretentious, overly perverse and dull.

audience

46

liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 4,447

My Rating

Movie Info

An attractive widow finds her attentions turning to her teenage son in a troubling manner in this drama from France. Pierre (Louis Garrel) is a moody 17-year-old who is spending the summer with his parents at their summer home in the Canary Islands. While Pierre isn't especially close to his father (Philippe Duclos), he enjoys a warm relationship with his mother, Hélène (Isabelle Huppert) -- almost too warm, as her affection for him subtly strains the boundaries of typical familial behavior.

Oct 18, 2005

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All Critics (50) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (7) | Rotten (38) | DVD (10)

A self-satisfied, utterly hollow Bacchanal.

August 18, 2005 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
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110 minutes of Euro silliness mitigated only by the presence of Huppert and the striking ability of the actors to keep a straight face throughout this mess.

July 29, 2005 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
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Probably isn't for anyone not interested in the darkest corners of the human psyche, where sexual annihilation is the only response to a fallen world, where all moral bets are off, and where a boy's worst friend is his mother.

July 8, 2005 Full Review Source: Boston Globe
Boston Globe
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[The climax] involves such a disturbing blend of unhealthy mother-son affection and physical pain that it gives new meaning to the term child -- not to mention audience -- abuse.

July 7, 2005 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Washington Post
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It could stand as Exhibit A for why French auteurs are a tough sell to the average seeker of entertainment.

July 1, 2005 Full Review Source: Toronto Star
Toronto Star
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The translation from the highly literary to the literalness of film isn't easy and too often, Ma Mère feels like a parody.

July 1, 2005 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail
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Eurotrash at its trashiest worst.

May 11, 2008 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Most of the screenplay consists of meandering and inebriated characters talking just as high-falutin'.

February 26, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International
Film Journal International

Strictly for people who see French films solely for the promise of seeing Louis Garrel's penis.

October 17, 2005 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine

This sexually messy, religiously infused film is a perfect example of the dregs of European cinema.

August 11, 2005
South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Glazed-over looks, naked flesh, inane philosophizing, and sand dunes announce that we're in Antonioni-land, circa Zabriskie Point.

July 31, 2005
Groucho Reviews

Ma mère could easily be mistaken for the latest anhedonic embarrassment out of Canada

July 15, 2005 Full Review Source: Film Freak Central
Film Freak Central

Audience Reviews for Ma Mere,(Meine Mutter),(My Mother)

European cinema at its best! Producer Paulo Branco has been producing some of the best films and best directors in Europe and this is one of the latest ones. Absolutely amazing, in depicting obsession, incest, dysfunction, love, selfishness, acceptation, pain... It's particularly brilliant how time and space is (not) presented.

The ending is terrific and the perfect conclusion to the story. Absolutely superb, a film I think only French could have the audacity to do... I hope European Cinema gets more protection so that we can keep watching these master pieces, otherwise we'll just have to stay dumb watching the main pop corn stream...
December 21, 2009
matertenebraum

Super Reviewer

French Existentialism. It does my head in! No really, this film is not as clever or as artistic as it thinks it is. Loosely based on a novel by Georges Bataille and ripped to pieces by Christophe Honoré who totally misses the point or at least doesn't understand the meaning (He also thinks by ripping off great directors like Eric Rohmer & Truffaut he is as good as them). This is awkward and unpleasant viewing. So far up its own arse its untrue but if you like the thought of your mum sticking a finger up your arse and making you lick it off then watching you have sex like a horse in a shopping centre, then this film is right up your street. I just hope you don't live down mine! Extra star for the good acting, read the book instead!
October 1, 2009
SirPant

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • My Mother (Ma mere) (DE)
  • My Mother (Ma Mere) (UK)
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