Powerful

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Blistering performances.

In Lille, the hairdresser Christine (Aurore Clément) has raised her son and two daughters alone. Philippe Tardieu (Benoît Magimel), who works in a renovation company; Sophie Tardieu (Solène Bouton), who is going to marry Jacky (Eric Seigne) in a couple of days; and Patricia Tardieu (Anna Mihalcea),who seems to be using drugs, live with their mother in a middle-class house where Christine works. Now, while a teenager is vanished in the city, Christine invites her son and daughters to meet her boyfriend, the wealthy Gérard Courtois (Bernard Le Coq) that has just divorced and is selling his house. She gives her garden stone head of the goddess of flowers Flora that Philippe adores to Gérard that tells her that he has a business travel to Italy on the next day, but he disappears from Christine's life. In Sophie's wedding, Philippe meets her sexy bridesmaid and Jacky's cousin Stéphanie "Senta" Bellange (Laura Smet) and they have one night stand. Despite the odd behavior of the unstable and apparently imaginative Senta, Philippe immediately falls in love for her and suggests four weird things to prove their love: planting a tree; writing a poem; having homosexual intercourse; and killing a person. When a homeless beggar is found murdered in the harbor, Philippe decides to fantasize that he had murdered the man to prove his love to Senta. On the next morning, when he wakes-up, Senta tells that she had murdered Gérard to please Philippe and describes her crime in details. Philippe decides to visit Gérard to find the truth about Senta."La Demoiselle d'Honneur" is an engaging thriller of Claude Chabrol that slightly recalled me Alfred Hitchcock style in "Strangers on a Train". The story has many subplots to divert the viewer and the twists are excellent. This is the first movie that I have seen of the sexy and gorgeous Laura Smet and I loved her performance, in a totally different type of psychopath. Like in other films of this director, the ending is open to interpretation and I believe that Philippe has indeed called the police, but will try to help Senta during her imprisonment. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Dama de Honra" ("The Bridesmaid")

If the director wasn't Claude Chabrol, I'm not sure this picture would have been released. It's a mystery story with a rather common theme. Ordinary man meets strange girl with secrets and his values tend to change in dangerous ways, because of the passion.But the acting alienates the viewer. The dialog and the facial expressions don't mix together and you can't take the theme seriously. That's a problem in many French movies and not at least those of Chabrol. Maybe it's because one is too used to American actor manners, but I'm not sure that's really the problem here.Passions can be boring and this is unfortunately an example.

This is yet another take on Chabrol's ongoing exploration of French suburbia and on balance it's no better or worse than most of his others. From the outset - Philippe Tardieu returns home to find his mother and sisters watching a news report involving the mysterious and possibly tragic disappearance of a young girl and turns the TV off - it's obvious that Philippe (Benoit Magimal) is destined to wind up on the TV himself having descended from an initially healthy to an ultimately unhealthy state of mind so that all we need now is a catalyst. Chabrol makes us wait and doesn't introduce Senta (Laura Smet) until about 30 minutes into the movie. From that point it's a case of watching as Senta eats into Philippe's brain the way maggots eat into a cadaver for, to all intents and purposes Philippe is a dead man from his first encounter with Senta. Chabrol likes to take his time and dallies over a situation involving Philippe's widowed mother Christine (Aurore Clement) and a possible replacement Gerard Courtois (Bernard Le Coq). Chabrol clearly sees Le Coq as 'heavy' material; in his last film Fleur du Mal Le Coq had a much bigger part as a much bigger villain and Suzanne Flon suffers a similar fate segueing from a main supporting role in Fleur to little more than a cameo here. Benoit Magimal is the kind of French actor I've never been able to warm to, a kind of Vincent Cassell-lite, seething with contained violence, trying for 'cool' and emerging as 'sullen' though in fairness Magimal here gets nearer to playing an essentially 'nice' guy than Cassell managed in L'Appartement. Laura Smet is excellent as the not-quite beautiful but very sensuous with it Senta as well she may be given her pedigree - the daughter of the great Nathalie Baye and, somewhat improbably, Johnny Hallyday. Overall it's a pleasant if not gripping enough entry, one which I've now seen twice and will possibly see again.

This is a very good Chabrol movie. To me, probably his best since "Merci Pour Le Chocolat". The "atmosfear" was captivating, the script well written. The casting is great. The sets were mysterious (the old castle, for example). Well, to make a long story short, if you like Claude Chabrol's suspense movies, please, do yourself a favour and watch this one. Much better than the previous one, "La Demoiselle D'Honneur", was, I think, innovative enough to mark the mind of even his (Claude Chabrol's) long time fans in the deepest way. If he's physically getting old, as we all do, Chabrol's mind is still very sharp and a joy to explore. In a word, the French Hitchcock is back in top form ! May be the Ruth Rendall background of this movie gives it its best aspects. "La Demoiselle d'Honneur" is a kind of child-movie to an older Chabrol's masterpiece called "La Cérémonie".