78
Metascore
25 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Film ThreatFilm ThreatHere Breillat directs one of the most thrilling actresses working today, and the latter makes this calculated study into a tale brimming with passion and sorrow.
- 90Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanA highly entertaining adaptation of French dandy Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly's mid-19th-century novel Une vieille maîtresse.
- 90The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisWhat’s explicit here is ravenous passion and the depiction of desire as a creating, destroying force that invades the very flesh. It's terribly French.
- 90SalonStephanie ZacharekSalonStephanie ZacharekThis explicit movie about a sexually insatiable 19th century courtesan emerges like an erotic dream.
- 88New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoBeautifully composed, The Last Mistress, Breillat's 11th film, deals with the theme she has put forth in such previous work as "Romance" and "Fat Girl": how women deal with sexual desire.
- 83The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasGiven their reputations as feminist provocateurs, the coming together of Breillat and Argento seems natural, even inevitable, and The Last Mistress gets a charge from their feisty, uncompromising spirit.
- 75Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerChristian Science MonitorPeter RainerDecorous to a fault, in the manner of middling Eric Rohmer talkfests, it's a film that could use some shaking up.
- 70VarietyLisa NesselsonVarietyLisa NesselsonAdapting a book by semi-notorious novelist and critic Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-89), Breillat freely stamps her strong and singular feminine insights on a man's material.
- 60Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumBreillat may be serious about creating period ambience, but she also can't resist patterning her heroine after Marlene Dietrich's Concha in "The Devil Is a Woman" (even though Argento sometimes suggests Maria Montez in the pleasure she takes in her own company).
- 60New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanThough Argento and Aattou lack the searing chemistry needed, the social politics are consistently intriguing, and everything - not to mention everyone -looks absolutely stunning.