Festival in Cannes
Paramount Classics | Release Date: March 8, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
46
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
13
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A giddy comic fantasy, full of romance, chicanery and beguiling, sophisticated players.
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
One of the season's most watchable treats. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Wry and sometime bitter movie about love. Read full review
70
VarietyScott Foundas
Jaglom's quickest and funniest picture in years and the most accessible. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeLoren King
Many of the story lines offer only superficial insight into the characters; Silver's rich but unhappy mogul has been done far too many times. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
It isn't a good movie, but it is diverting, a showcase for Anouk Aimee, Greta Scacchi and Ron Silver, and a peephole on behind-the-scenes moves. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Festival in Cannes is definitely Jaglomesque, but can't get that tricky balance right -- the result is a picture as charmingly insubstantial as the world it invokes. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Makes compromises itself, but only because of its small budget and its director's mixed dark-and-rosy vision, at once cynical and sentimental. Yet at least it has a vision -- of both life and cinema. Read full review
60
Village VoiceEd Park
Has shades of such oleaginous insider-treading as "The Player" and "Celebrity," but the mood, like the lighting, is altogether sunnier. Read full review
60
Film ThreatChris Gore
Takes us into the heart of the desperate, needy, funny, alternately glamorous and sleazy world of the international movie business. Read full review
60
New Times (L.A.)Andy Klein
Festival in Cannes is an amused indictment of Jaglom's own profession; he doesn't seem to be making excuses for anybody's compromised (or even downright immoral) behavior here. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
A good deal of anger washes through this acerbic portrait of the movie business in histrionically high gear. But so does a lot of sentimentality, and as the sentimentality quotient rises, it erodes the film's credibility. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
In crafting an insider's perspective, Jaglom has done an effective job. It's too bad that nearly everything else fails. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
With its brisk pace, breezy dialogue and gently jaundiced view of the rites of filmmaking, this is one of Jaglom's most accessible and genuinely enjoyable films. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Even the women in Festival in Cannes feel more like sketches than fully realized people -- the aging actress, the naive hopeful, the newly minted starlet -- leaving you nothing but the showbiz satire to chew on. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
The best of the lot are Greta Scacchi, as an actress trying to peddle her first screenplay (with herself attached as director), and Ron Silver.
42
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
Tainted by cliches, painful improbability and murky points. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
This isn't a terrible film by any means, but it's also far from being a realized work. Jaglom has said that he “writes” his films in the editing room, but for Festival in Cannes he must have been using a crayon. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Even when better members of Jaglom's cast make connections, the atmosphere remains one of dull chaos. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Can't hold a candle to Robert Altman's 1992 comedy "The Player." Both films present themselves as knowing views of the movie business, but Mr. Altman and his writer, Michael Tolkin, really knew.
40
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Has some flavor, and Ron Silver gives a swell impersonation of a cool and slimy studio executive. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Remains little more than a briefly fascinating curiosity, a travelogue for those of us who can't actually attend. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
The only reason to watch this movie is for stargazing, nice shots of the sea and to revel in a world where false promises, lies and empty posturing are actively encouraged. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Pleasantly meanders around a group of people who pitch projects and pitch woo on the Riviera.
25
New York PostJonathan Foreman
There is something offensively lazy about the thinness of the Jaglom's movie-industry characters, the simplistic problems they face, and the clumps of clumsy, apparently improvised dialogue they have to deliver.
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