Romance
Trimark Pictures | Release Date: September 17, 1999 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
10
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Film.comErnest Hardy
One of the best films of this year...unlike anything you've seen on the big screen. Read full review
80
SalonRay Sawhill
A landmark -- the first movie to give a convincing, feature-length account of sex from a woman's point of view. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAmy Taubin
A dark and unsparing study of female masochism and a brittle sex comedy of manners, Romance is unsettled in tone, to say the least. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
No other mainstream movie has so openly tackled the subject of female sexual experience. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
I did not really enjoy this movie, and yet I recommend it. Why? Because I think it's on to something interesting. Here is a movie about a woman who never stops thinking. That may not be as good for you as it is for her. Read full review
75
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Despite many flaws...Romance is unquestionably an important film. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
There's never been a movie director like Catherine Breillat, a fearless visionary and one hell of a woman. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The movie is a footnote as well, a minor reference back to the days when people yearned for a cinema that was serious and erotic at the same time. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A singularly cheerless trip, explicit but sterile, racy but dull. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The eroticism is powerful, and the documentary candor and directness of the sex scenes make this well worth seeing. Read full review
60
NewsweekDavid Ansen
For those who believe that movies are a proper place to explore the riddle of sex, no holds barred, this movie is de rigueur. Read full review
53
Mr. ShowbizMichael Atkinson
Showing the sex seems to be the film's raison d'etre, which gets you only so far. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeJay Carr
Lots of sex, but little joy. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
A cheerless exercise.
50
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
An au natural (read: graphic) tryst-a-thon whose fashion sense is outweighed only by its bulky sexual intellectualism. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
It's like watching a bad update of an Antonioni film. Read full review
50
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
Hovers between passion and philosophical argument without fully achieving its ambition to fuse the two. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
More cautionary than titillating...some of it (is) deliberately disturbing. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Visually stunning and breathtakingly frank, but thrill-seekers beware. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverJean Oppenheimer
The fact that Romance was written and directed by a woman doesn't make the film any better; it simply makes it objectionable on other grounds. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Sex may, indeed, be all in the mind, but Romance fails to score in the mind's eye. Read full review
25
Baltimore SunAnn Hornaday
Catherine Breillat's pretentious, meandering, self-indulgent portrait of a libidinously deprived young woman is nothing more than pornography tricked out as feminist parable. Read full review
20
TimeRichard Corliss
It's mostly an ordeal--for actress and audience. Read full review
20
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
As pretentious as it is hard-core specific, this fiercely anti-erotic film makes even the chilly "Eyes Wide Shut" play like "The Big Easy." Read full review
20
Film.comJohn Hartl
Exists in some kind of limbo, between hard-core porn and European art film, and it's not likely to satisfy fans of either. Read full review
0
TNT RoughCutChristopher Brandon
The film so strongly fixates on strange, explicit sexual acts that it forgoes any emotional (i.e. romantic) aspects of sex.
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