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Secret Things (2003)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:48
Fresh:23
Rotten:25
Average Rating:5.5/10
Consensus: Pretentious and trashy.
Theatrical Release:Jan 2, 2004 Limited
Synopsis: Jean-Claude Brisseau's film is a heady melange of old-fashioned office seduction and Sadean orgy-mongering done up with Gallic flair. Sandrine (Sabrina Seyvecou) and Nathalie (Coralie Revel) meet... Jean-Claude Brisseau's film is a heady melange of old-fashioned office seduction and Sadean orgy-mongering done up with Gallic flair. Sandrine (Sabrina Seyvecou) and Nathalie (Coralie Revel) meet while being fired from a strip club and soon they dare each other into a lesbian affair and masturbate publicly. They decide to make their new sexual exploits work for them, getting office jobs and sleeping their way up the corporate ladder. Nathalie counsels Sandrine in her seduction of the hardworking head of the firm (Roger Mirmont), but then Nathalie makes the mistake of falling for the handsome CEO (Fabrice Deville), an amoral hedonist who seduces the young women of the company and then drives them to suicide. He also likes to stage massive orgies and sleep with his own sister (Blandine Bury). From there on in, it just gets wilder, replete with a lurking specter of death and her pet hawk. While orgasmic writhing is plentiful, Brisseau's straightforward narrative keeps things focused. The film is as much homage to the pre-code Hollywood films of yore as it is an exercise in steamy Franco-erotica. A strong score of classical music by Bach, Vivaldi, and others makes SECRET THINGS what Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT was trying to be, a depiction of how the velocity of sex can tear the trappings of contemporary urban life clear away, exposing the timeless passion for destruction at the human core. [More]
Starring: Sabrina Seyvecou, Coralie Revel, Roger Mirmont, Fabrice Deville
Starring: Sabrina Seyvecou, Coralie Revel, Roger Mirmont, Fabrice Deville, Blandine Buryas
Director: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Director: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Screenwriter: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Producer: Jean-Francois Geneix, Jean-Claude Brisseau
Studio: First Run Features
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Reviews for Secret Things
What's silly about this is all the sex and nudity. And what's exciting about it is, right, all the sex and nudity.
Brisseau is getting at the heart of human nature and the price of ambition, and he's cutting with a sharp knife, revealing all of its entrails whether you like it or not
Jean-Claude Brisseau's French film is a frequently overheated, often delirious fantasy about two Parisiennes in their early 20's.
Happily and ridiculously over the top, Secret Things is a war of anarchic, sexual primitisim.
An artistically ambitious exercise that enables audiences to be simultaneously teased erotically and intellectually.
For those who like their erotic melodramas frosty and lavish, Secret Things is as elaborately whipped up as such treats ever get.
The initial objective with which Brisseau aligns the audience is replaced with a stark ambivalence that tremendously complicates the movie.
One of the most sexually daring films to hit the screens in the U.S. since 'Last Tango in Paris.'
Brisseau effortlessly stages the sort of ooh-la-la orgy that so clearly eluded Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut.
It's an extremely erotic film which is, amazingly, a feast for both brain and eye.
It still may well-deserve consideration as a first-class exploitation flick.
a cinematic joy ride, an outrageous jaw dropper that explores serious themes under the guise of gaudy entertainment
It would be hard to mount a straight-faced defense of Brisseau's feverish moral tale, complete with a lurking angel of death, but the carnal machinations are hugely entertaining -- particularly if you like your skin with a bracing sermon chaser.
Secret Things is definitely erotic and will appeal to prurient interests with its soft core pornography. But there is also the tale of ambition...
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| 68% 68% | Funny People |
| 95% 95% | Star Trek |
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| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 67% 67% | Public Enemies |
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