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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
Either a highly erotic art film trading in sex, power and morality, or a trashy porno pretending to be deep. After watching two hours of hot young French women having sex with men, each other and themselves, I have to go with the latter.
Tawdry, derailed, intellectualized melodrama -- the desperately French equivalent of an early-’90s, straight-to-vid Joan Severance title...
Imagine Emmanuelle remade on a shoestring budget or Eyes Wide Shut staged by a community theater group.
Jean-Claude Brisseau's film, which takes a whip to Dangerous Liaisons and even winks at Rules of the Game, gets very silly with lesbian voyeurism and liturgical music.
I wouldn't entirely dismiss it, but I would be reluctant to say I found too much about it that warmed my heart and appeased my soul.
Gets more operatically farcical (most of it unintentionally so) by the minute.
There comes a moment in all truly terrible movies when you sense that you couldn't possibly be co-existing on the same planet as the filmmakers.
While some might mistake it as a bitter view of sexual politics and empowerment, it's also pretty crass filmmaking.
Culminates in a quasi-philosophical orgy of pretense and trashy would-be kicks that takes its rightful place among the worst movies I have ever seen.
With plenty of girl-on-girl action, this is the movie that photographer David Hamilton would love to make.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 90% 90% | District 9 |
| 86% 86% | 500 Days of Summer |
| 63% 63% | Extract |
| 06% 06% | All About Steve |
| 78% 78% | It Might Get Loud |
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