Gabrielle
Wellspring Media | Release Date: July 14, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Together with his extraordinary performers, Mr. Chéreau breathes life into characters who long ago set a course for death. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
A period chamber drama drawn from a Joseph Conrad short story and of such intensity and passion that it transcends a specificity of time and place to achieve timelessness and universality. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
If all this potent drama recalls Bergman, the beautifully articulated staging and setting suggest that master of operatic social-sexual drama, Luchino Visconti ("The Leopard"). Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
In Chéreau's hands, Gabrielle has an operatic quality that throws the repressive environment into sharp relief; the film works like a pressure cooker, seething with bottled passions that intermittently burst through with startling cruelty and violence. Read full review
90
Village VoiceDennis Lim
At once robust and ethereal, this is an existential ghost story, with fresh blood pulsing through its veins. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
A haunting and riveting work, unlike anything else you can see at the movies and as such an explicit challenge to the unambitious, anesthetic character of most contemporary cinema. But is it easy, or delightful, or fun? It is not. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Patrice Chereau's portrait of a marriage en crise is an excoriating look at the deep unhappiness that can fester within the most respectable-seeming of households. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Greggory anchors Gabrielle in manly bewilderment and rage, while Huppert claws the title character's way to self-awareness. Read full review
80
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
The film is a wonder and a joy to watch on any number of levels. Read full review
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Huppert and Greggory provide the emotional impact. They respond accordingly, imbuing their mutual suffering with an exacting and moving finesse. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The film's impact has a lot to do with Fabio Vacchi's original score, which is both plaintive and coldly modernist, with echoes of Charles Ives. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderRichard M. Porton
This highly stylized portrait of a loveless marriage at the beginning of the 20th century merges a claustrophobic theatricality with dazzlingly cinematic wide-screen compositions (the sumptuous cinematography is by Eric Gautier). Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterBernard Besserglik
Gabrielle inspires mixed feelings; it is dialogue heavy but a treat for the eye. Read full review
70
VarietyDerek Elley
Though it won't appeal to everyone, the concoction actually works, thanks to Huppert and Greggory's powerful negative chemistry. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
So much of this adaptation is engrossing that the script's additions are jarring. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Gabrielle, a quietly insidious tale of domestic warfare that makes the protagonists of Bergman's "Scenes From a Marriage" look like pussycats, will exasperate and satisfy in roughly equal measure. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Chereau keeps us locked inside their suffocatingly unhappy home, making for an intensely theatrical chamber piece. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The catch in Gabrielle is that the audience pays as well. Read full review
60
EmpireDavid Parkinson
This looks and sounds superb. Isabelle Huppert and Pascal Gregory are splendid. But the over-archingly smug sophistication of the enterprise robs it of some much-needed human interest. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
A chilly, pretentious and talky drama. Read full review
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