Une Vieille Maîtresse (The Last Mistress) (An Old Mistress) Reviews

The Last Mistress displays the director's contempt for conventionality in clear, ringing tones.

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Breillat's unflinching instinct for the doomed, all-consuming pull of sexual obsession shakes the story up in rewarding ways.

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An elegant film about an irresistible hot romance.

Full Review | Original Score: B

The characters ultimately feel more like pawns to be manipulated, rather than flesh-and-blood human beings who suffer and love, which gives the film's message that the two are essentially one in the same a rather hollow ring.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Rather boring.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Argento seizes each scene with both hands, adding surprising layers of feeling as she goes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

It's devastating.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

It is an outstandingly intelligent, formally pleasing film, and a fascinating development for Breillat herself.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

All of the characters are so elusive and thin there's nothing to grab our interest.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

[An] entertaining, elegantly shot adaptation of Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's 19th century novel.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

There was a point about midway through "The Last Mistress" when I was honestly wondering if it was intentionally bad.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

Seldom have a filmmaker and lead actress performed in perfect, artistic sync.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Argento is a feral beauty who devours everything in her path, and a perfect actress for Breillat. But the director seems hemmed in by the period finery, and the movie is a self-conscious yawn.

| Original Score: 2.5/4

Argento, the daughter of Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, has become a force to be reckoned with on the international film scene over the past couple of years.

Full Review | Original Score: B

Screenwriter/director Catherine Breillat's take on the tale has a definite feminist slant to it, which may explain why the male characters come off so badly. And unfortunately, sometimes that makes it dull.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Oh god, have I ever seen a more tedious 'erotic' movie than this one?

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There's plenty of skin and acrobatic positioning in Catherine Breillat's The Last Mistress, but the ferocious passions they signify are far more interesting.

| Original Score: 3/4

Argento... owns this film, body and soullessness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

What makes the movie ineluctably compelling is Argento's fire in the title role.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

A dispassionate autopsy of a passionate triangle, brilliantly devised if not always perfectly executed.

Full Review | Original Score: B