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Private Fears in Public Places (Coeurs) (2006)

tomatometer

79

Average Rating: 7/10
Reviews Counted: 66
Fresh: 52 | Rotten: 14

The premise isn't anything new, but director Alain Resnais' attention to detail and smooth camerawork gives this movie a delicate edge.

74

Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 23
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 6

The premise isn't anything new, but director Alain Resnais' attention to detail and smooth camerawork gives this movie a delicate edge.

audience

49

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 4,867

My Rating

Movie Info

A handful of characters struggle to hold on to relationships with the people they care for in this collaboration between playwright Alan Ayckbourn and filmmaker Alain Resnais. Dan (Lambert Wilson) has recently finished up a hitch in the Army, but rather than deal with his emotional issues, Dan prefers to get drunk. While he barely communicates with his girlfriend, Nicole (Laura Morante), she's convinced they will still marry and opts to ignore his obvious problems. Lionel (Pierre Arditi) is a

Unrated,

Drama

Jean-Michel Ribes

Aug 7, 2007

IFC Films

Cast

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All Critics (69) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (52) | Rotten (14) | DVD (6)

What reaches us, most of all, are the hidden, unmet longings that keep the film's Parisian characters from finding true happiness.

October 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Washington Post
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The tenderness with which Resnais observes their efforts makes for genuinely enchanting entertainment.

June 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Private Fears suffers from [director Alain] Resnais' inability to open it up and give it the look and pulse of a film.

June 15, 2007 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Resnais shapes affecting performances from a polished cast. He creates a warm, comic melancholy.

June 8, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Resnais has always been an expressionist, using his settings and compositions to evoke the inner states of his characters. Here, tying expressionism to social critique, he becomes an improbable but unmistakable blood brother of Carl Dreyer.

June 8, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A film about love and blunders done from the perspective of age, crafted by writer Alan Ayckbourn, 68, and director Alain Resnais, 85. Our younger directors and screenwriters should show this much brilliance and feeling.

June 8, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A graceful roundelay of disconnection

August 27, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion
CinePassion

What makes Private Fears so extraordinary is not just how it completely upends the expectations that have come to seem inherent in such a structure, but how Resnais constantly pushes the boundaries of his, well, let's call it visual depiction.

January 4, 2008 Full Review Source: Premiere Magazine
Premiere Magazine

There is a different side to everyone in Alain Resnais' enigmatic film about six strangers whose Parisian lives randomly intersect.

November 30, 2007 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile
Urban Cinefile

A gentle look at the pain of loneliness that almost all of us feel from time to time.

September 12, 2007 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy
Antagony & Ecstasy

A feast for the eyes.

September 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Warm and wry, funny and sad, cute and complicated.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall
Shadows on the Wall

Not one he'll be remembered for, but a cut above.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Little White Lies
Little White Lies

While there's a quirky humour at work, the overall mood is of sadness, eloquently, if repetitively, expressed.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: thelondonpaper
thelondonpaper

Private Fears is so fluently made that its edginess only gradually becomes evident. It's both funny and sad, without underlining anything, and the playing is as good as you would expect from Resnais's regulars.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: This is London
This is London

Ayckbourn's play might have made frothy fun of this comedie humaine, on screen this feels a poor, airless thing.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Independent

This French film based on a play by Scarborough's finest Sir Alan Ayckbourn is best described as a little bit pedestrian.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Sun Online
Sun Online

Quiet desperation is an emotion you'll probably feel as you wait for the movie to end.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK]
Daily Mirror [UK]

The theatrical, colour-coded sets, graceful camerawork and scene-bridging snowfall motif create a quasi-fairytale feel. But it's the beautifully tuned ensemble acting that infuses this funny, sad treat with real humanist heft.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Total Film
Total Film

No one would argue that this slight six-hander is one of Resnais's greatest movies, but it's far from an embarrassment, and even its strained comic business is enclosed within a prevailing atmosphere of wistful resignation.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph
Daily Telegraph

Neither comic, nor tragic, nor tragicomic, the movie manages to be entirely inconsequential, gesturing at emotional truths which it is quite unable to embody.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK]
Guardian [UK]

Although now well into his eighties, Resnais brings an elegance and lightness of touch to this romantic roundelay - it's not the most profound musing on life and love, but it's eminently watchable.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Times [UK]
Times [UK]

Beautifully judged ensemble pieces.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: BBC

An insightful reflection on relationships and solitude.

July 20, 2007 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine

Resnais and his superb cast have poured their hearts into this film adaptation and anyone seeking mature entertainment should search for this gem.

July 14, 2007 Full Review Source: Murphy's Movie Reviews
Murphy's Movie Reviews

Audience Reviews for Private Fears in Public Places (Coeurs)

This is a example of French arthouse-cinema at it's very worst and that it comes from highly overhyped director Alain Resnais is no surprise. Coeurs is a uneven film where we can see some of Resnais trademark visuals at work. As a director of such films like Hiroshima, Mon Amour and L'annee Derniere a Marienbad he is well known director in certain circles. There used to be time when i admired his Hiroshima, Mon Amour greatly, but in last ten years i have understood that Resnais's was two hit wonder. After 60's he has not made a single interesting film. Even Hiroshima feels a bit too artsy for it's own good these days. That said L'annee Derniere a Marienbad seems to be his own masterpiece. I certainly cannot say if i truly admire that film or not, makes it even more interesting in my books. Resnais' Coeurs feels like light years away from the director we saw working in 60's. This is obviously a clumsy little film that has absolutely nothing new or interesting to offer.
November 28, 2011
emilkakko

Super Reviewer

Uneven but beautifully crafted study of the modern malaise of trying to connect. Not all the scenarios ring true but they are skillfully entwined with an affecting score.
April 3, 2008
gor41
Gordon A

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Coeurs - Herzen (DE)
  • Private Fears In Public Places (UK)
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