A moving, distinctly French tale, this sumptuous production is made complete with a brilliant performance by leading lady Yolande Moreau.
Comment
09/22/09
Séraphine (2008)
89
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:84
Fresh:75
Rotten:9
Average Rating:7.5/10
Consensus: Seraphine is a well-crafted French film that effectively captures one woman's experience with art, religion, and mental illness, and features a brilliant performance from Yolande Moreau.
Theatrical Release:Jun 5, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $557,682
Synopsis: Based on a true story, Seraphine centers on Séraphine de Senlis (Moreau), a simple and profoundly devout housekeeper whose brilliantly colorful canvases now adorn some of the most famous galleries... [More]
Starring: Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Genevieve Mnich
Director: Martin Provost
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Reviews for Séraphine
Séraphine doesn’t mess with the formula but the script allows plenty of awkward details to remain and we’re allowed to decide for ourselves if fame was a godsend for her.
11/27/09
The energies of Séraphine are devoted to examining the alchemy by which perception is transformed into vision.
06/05/09
Top CriticMoreau is bewitching -- she simply breathes her role, without a hint of vanity.
06/03/09
Scores points for actually investing time in scenes depicting the extent to which she worked on her art.
11/27/09
Moreau’s marvellous performance captures the vulnerabilities of a woman who never dares to dream that her work might be taken seriously and who seemed to spend a lifetime poised between the call of greatness and the threat of madness.
11/27/09
Provost and cowriter Marc Abdelnour explore the mutable boundaries between spirituality, naivete, genius, and madness, showing how the two outsiders and polar opposites cultivated a mutual understanding.
12/17/09
As far as biopics of painters go, Séraphine is one of the very best
09/19/09
The film is a commendably worthy endeavor, and I am almost ashamed that my ingrained hedonistic attitude toward movies prevents me from recommending Séraphine more enthusiastically.
06/10/09
Top CriticNext to Demme’s expressionism and Troell’s realism, Provost’s good film is banal.
06/03/09
We are ... made privy to the very reverie, that state of almost beatific hypnosis, where artists find sanctuary and are compelled to create.
07/19/09
Yolande Moreau's Seraphine, all doughy and unreadable at first, lets you see how the passion that enriches her work might also upend her life.
06/10/09
Top CriticIt ... works as an intimate story of one woman’s mental instability; the film commendably does not demur from recognizing that whatever powered Séraphine’s art was also responsible for her social awkwardness and institutionalization.
10/08/09
The film's complex portrait of Seraphine -- who is alternately angry, bewildered, funny, belligerent and tender -- feels as fresh and alive as her work still does.
07/24/09
It has a lyricism, passion and beauty unmatched in cinema this year.
11/27/09
...the audience is brought increasingly closer into the heart and mind of a genius whose turbulent inner life eventually envelops her conscious being.
06/08/09
Séraphine is one of the most evocative films about an artist I’ve ever seen -- and in its treatment of madness one of the least condescending.
06/01/09
Top CriticWhimsical but wonderful - and very worthy of those awards.
11/27/09
An exceptional and exquisitely photographed depiction of artistic taste, social snobbery and transient celebrity.
11/27/09
A naive, between-the-wars French painter is brought to vivid life in the satisfying fact-inspired drama Seraphine.
12/17/09
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