Poison Friends (2007)
88 %
Reviews Counted: 24 Fresh: 21 Rotten:3 Average Rating: 7/10
Consensus:
A sharp examination of university life, Poison Friends is a psychological drama with a wry edge.
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Theatrical Release: Apr 27, 2007 Limited
Synopsis: When college friends Eloj and Alexandre meet charismatic, brilliant thinker Andre, their lives begin to change. Wooed by his attention, the young students lose outside perspective and put themselves in a vulnerable position by catering to his every whim, never considering the... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Malik Zidi, Thomas Blanchard, Dominique Blanc, Jacques Bonnaffe, Natacha Regnier
Director: Emmanuel Bourdieu
Screenwriter: Marcia Romano, Emmanuel Bourdieu
Producer: Yorick Le Saux
Composer: Gregoire Hetzel
Screenwriter: Marcia Romano, Emmanuel Bourdieu
Producer: Yorick Le Saux
Composer: Gregoire Hetzel
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Reviews
There are some schematics at work in the screenplay, but the film proves to be an entertaining, if frustrating, experience.
Comment
07/14/07
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07/12/07
This clever little film explodes conceptions and presents a good argument for the ends justifying the means.
07/04/07
The dialogue in "Poison Friends" is clever and erudite, but underneath the lit-crit the film has the atmosphere of a Hitchcockian thriller.
06/29/07
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06/02/07
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06/02/07
Poison Friends is at once a sly satire on the pretensions and aspirations of academia and an intellectual suspense-thriller that builds and builds but never loses credibility.
05/24/07
Top Critic
It's intellectual without being dry, dramatic without bombast, smart without posturing.
05/24/07
Top Critic
While the young people chatter about life and literature with sometimes overbearing self-satisfaction, the astute filmmaker observes their pretentious gum-flapping with a mixture of amusement, compassion, and wised-up rue.
05/09/07
Top Critic
In this observant psychological drama with the energy of a thriller, there's no blood (except for maybe a paper cut) or weapons, but audible gasps will not be out of place.
04/27/07
If you don't take anything Andre says seriously, there is a wicked sense of fun about it, and you may even see a little of yourself in one of the characters.
04/27/07
Top Critic
The movie seems an act of score-settling by someone who got singed by a critic. Fair enough, and André's deviousness makes the film slyly credible, too.
04/27/07
Top Critic
Has a degree of energy, an appetite for strong feelings and big ideas, notably missing in American movies about the young and overeducated, which tend to specialize in mumbled ironies and tiny epiphanies.
04/27/07
Top Critic
Four university students band together under the obnoxious mentorship of Andre, who is meant to be brilliant but, to me at least, seemed all too obviously a poseur. His betrayal of his friends deepens the movie.
04/26/07
Promoted as an intellectual suspense thriller, Emmanuel Bourdieu's second feature film is a chilling plunge into the dark pools of group think and a scalding examination of the vulnerability of the unformed identity.
04/26/07
Top Critic
The movie is largely unclassifiable -- at once a psychological study, an exceedingly dry comedy, and a moral tale in which stories are purloined and frauds perpetrated.
04/24/07
Top Critic
A solid script, but it's really the performance by Vinçon that's likely to leave a lasting impression on the viewer.
04/24/07
Art-house fans young and old will revel in the film's evocation of urban student life and certain archetypes -- good and ornery -- who grace or despoil the groves of academe.
04/23/07
Related Forums
(NYFF)-Emmanuel Bourdieu's POISON FRIENDS to screen @ the 44th New York Film Festival
by: REEL_REVIEWER 7/23/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 7/23/07
(NYFF)-Emmanuel Bourdieu's POISON FRIENDS to screen @ the 44th New York Film Festival
by: REEL_REVIEWER 7/23/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 7/23/07
(NYFF)-Emmanuel Bourdieu's POISON FRIENDS to screen @ the 44th New York Film Festival
by: REEL_REVIEWER 7/23/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 7/23/07
(NYFF)-Emmanuel Bourdieu's POISON FRIENDS to screen @ the 44th New York Film Festival
by: REEL_REVIEWER 7/23/07
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News
Critical Consensus: This Film Is "Condemned"; "Next" Vexes; Guess "Invisible," "Kickin' It" Tomatometers!
posted by Tim Ryan April 26, 2007
This week at the movies, we've got clairvoyants ("Next," with Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore), cons...
posted by Tim Ryan April 26, 2007
This week at the movies, we've got clairvoyants ("Next," with Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore), cons...
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