The Last Mistress in the UK.

"No one familiar with the films of Catherine Breillat will be shocked to learn that her costume drama The Last Mistress, based on Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's 19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse, is more of an out-of-costume drama," writes Ryan Gilbey in the New Statesman. "What is surprising, after her insufferably woolly studies of sexual power games (Romance, Sex is Comedy, Anatomy of Hell), is that the picture is a model of precision."

Updated through 4/14.

"[I]t is a little like Dangerous Liaisons, though its erotic interludes are more candid, its tragedy more heartfelt, and its dialogue more cerebral, even austere," suggests the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. "It is in fact closer in style and substance to Jacques Rivette's recent film Ne Touchez Pas la Hache... Catherine Breillat's movies have never been much liked in this country; she is often dismissed as the sole surviving practitioner of an obsolete art-porn aesthetic. The people who want to deride her may find more ammunition in The Last Mistress, and yet it is an outstandingly intelligent, formally pleasing film, and a fascinating development for Breillat herself."

"Swiftly and deftly immersing us in the fashions - not just the clothes and decor, but also the changing sexual and social ethics - of the 1830s, Breillat's meticulous, eloquent script and direction succeed in relating a rich, complex, consistently engrossing story and in providing an insightful commentary on the mores and literary concerns of the time," writes Geoff Andrew in Time Out. "[Asia] Argento has never been better, [Roxane] Mesquida and the supporting actors are strong, and Fu'ad Aït Aattou is a real find, his androgyne beauty splendidly cast, his début performance subtle and assured."

"The histrionic grand passions border on the ridiculous," writes Wendy Ide in the London Times. "Argento's wildcat Vellini lashes out at the ones she loves, and she's usually holding a knife when she does it. But it's a handsome and atmospheric piece that explores Breillat's preferred themes of sex and misery with gusto."

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes and the NYFF.

Opens at the IFC Center in New York on July 27.

Update, 4/14: "There are few directors less likely to make a costume drama than Breillat and yet The Last Mistress shows the same well-honed eye for period detail, shifting sexual politics and social change as Patrice Leconte's Ridicule or Patrice Chéreau's La Reine Margot," blogs Maria Esposito for the Guardian. "As she prepares for her next film, Bad Love, Breillat would do well to reflect on The Last Mistress's success. With Naomi Campbell and fraudster Christophe Rocancourt lined up to star in an adaptation of Breillat's own novel, love might not be the only thing to turn bad. Campbell and Rocancourt will be in their first leading roles and delivering their lines in both English and Chinese."

Posted by dwhudson at April 11, 2008 3:53 AM