Renoir (2013)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 60
Fresh: 43 | Rotten: 17
Appropriately enough, Renoir offers viewers a drama of sumptuous beauty -- which is more than enough to offset its frustratingly slow pace and rather thinly written screenplay.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 24
Fresh: 19 | Rotten: 5
Appropriately enough, Renoir offers viewers a drama of sumptuous beauty -- which is more than enough to offset its frustratingly slow pace and rather thinly written screenplay.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 3,425
Movie Info
Set on the French Riviera in the summer of 1915, Gilles Bourdos' lushly atmospheric drama RENOIR tells the story of celebrated Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, in declining health at age 74, and his middle son Jean, who returns home to convalesce after being wounded in World War I. The elder Renoir is filled with a new, wholly unexpected energy when a young girl miraculously enters his world. Blazing with life, radiantly beautiful, Andrée will become his last model, and the
Cast
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Michel Bouquet
Pierre-Auguste Renoi... -
Christa Theret
Andrée Heuschling -
Vincent Rottiers
Jean Renoir -
Thomas Doret
Coco Renoir -
Anne-Lise Heimburger
Baker -
Sylviane Goudal
Big Louise -
Emmanuelle Lepoutre
Doctor -
Solène Rigot
Madeleine -
Romane Bohringer
Gabrielle -
Carlo Brandt
Doctor Prat -
Thierry Hancisse
Junk Dealer -
Laurent Poitrenaux
Pierre Renoir -
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All Critics (60) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (43) | Rotten (17)
With its warm colors and sweet streams of light, its love of both the countryside and the human form, it makes you dream of painting. Or making movies. Or just luxuriating in the brilliance.
Top CriticThanks to ace Taiwanese cameraman Mark Ping Bing Lee, it conveys the inspirational qualities of sun-dappled light and rosy flesh.
"Renoir" doesn't get much beneath the surface - but, good God, what a surface.
For those who just want to float away on waves of beauty, "Renoir" is a boating party.
Stately to a fault, the film is not enough drama, too much still life.
One would expect a film about French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir to look beautiful, to be shot in warm, sumptuous colors. And one would not be disappointed in Gilles Bourdos' "Renoir."
Most films labor furiously, trying to infuse every frame with passion. Renoir is content to sit still, creating effortless beauty in the style of its subject, painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Thanks to a remarkably unselfconscious performance from Christa Theret as Andrée Heuschling, we see the young model bringing the ageing impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir back to life - and ultimately inspiring his son Jean to become a filmmaker.
Gilles Bourdos' biopic is plenty pretty but the drama is a still life.
Overly dependent on the beauty of its Edenic setting, which is lushly photographed by Taiwanese cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee.
You would need a soul of potash not to savour the delicious fauna and flattering southern light. But the film never gets far beyond the decorative.
The bright, warm sunlight of the Cte d'Azur casts a golden glow over a film set in the summer of 1915.
The story falters when it runs through its very traditional, even hackneyed arcs ...
This gives a new meaning to Truffaut's phrase le cinéma du papa.
There is just something unsatisfying about Renoir, as a feature that promises so much and yet delivers so little.
A film of lazy days, sleepless nights and mellow moments that will likely test the patience of those unwilling to resign to its unhurried pace.
Rated R for 'art-related nudity.' By that standard, shouldn't the Louvre be Adults Only?
A portrait of the artist as an old fart.
You'll never look at a Renoir work the same way again, whether it's on a canvas or, in the case of Jean, celluloid. And for that, we can thank Andree Heushling, a beauty who inspired beauty in a most beautiful way.
Renoir is one of those movies where all the pieces are in place for something intriguing and insightful. To that end, the film fails.
Renoir is great at capturing some of the details of daily life within this unique household and conveying an Impressionist atmosphere on film, but as far as telling us a story, the film is a washout.
Renoir really does have the lush glory of a Renoir, and that isn't easy to sustain. Any given freeze frame in this thing is lovely to behold. See Renoir for the glorious light and Theret's strong performance, but don't expect a whole lot of conflict.
You will undoubtedly see better movies than Gilles Bourdos' Renoir this year, but there's a good chance you won't see a more breathtakingly gorgeous one.
Lush, captivating.
Audience Reviews for Renoir
Super Reviewer
In the early days of the French film journal, Cahiers du Cinema, its writers expounded at length about the poor state of French cinema. 'Renoir' is exactly the type of film so often lambasted in the pages of the yellow-covered magazine, a bland cash-in on a French cultural icon which feels more like a tourist board commercial than any kind of drama. There's absolutely no dramatic weight to Bourdos' tale and you can't help sense he's trying to create a story where none exists. Andree arrives, Auguste paints her, Jean falls for her. That's all we get. There's nothing to get you involved in this story, one featuring privileged people for whom life comes far too easily.
The one piece of dramatic conflict rests on one of the ultimate period-piece cliches: the young man who chooses to return to the war rather than staying with his lover. We learn nothing of what may have influenced the work of Renoir, neither father nor son. Renoir Snr is portrayed as a dirty old man, constantly babbling about young flesh, while his son comes across as a bit of a drip, a poor match for the vitality of Andree.
If there's one thing this film gets right, it's the beautiful cinematography of Ping Bin-Lee, perfectly capturing the light of a Southern French summer. For the most part, 'Renoir' is nothing more than another piece of Tourist Board Cinema.
Super Reviewer
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- Jean Renoir: Titian would have given his left arm for tits like that.
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