Violette
Adopt Films | Release Date: June 13, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyMissy SchwartzJun 12, 2014
In Martin Provost’s graceful biopic, Emmanuelle Devos plays Leduc as a powder keg of a woman who used her loneliness and insecurity as the explosive fuel for her work. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 12, 2014
[A] handsome, intelligently absorbing and stirring biographical portrait. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAbby GarnettJun 10, 2014
Provost's film, like its heroine, is full of active, sparking nerves. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesInkoo KangJun 26, 2014
Director Martin Provost's epic portrait of novelist Violette Leduc is so compelling, even thrilling, in its frank depictions of female sexual voracity, professional egotism and twisted variants on the Electra complex that it's easy to overlook his film's shaggy, uneven plotting. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJun 12, 2014
It’s a movie about coming to peace with solitude, leagues beyond most biopics. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJun 26, 2014
Violette mostly avoids the pitfalls associated with movies about writers by limiting the scenes of Violette scribbling furiously in a notebook. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 26, 2014
As presented here, the novelist Violette Leduc is fascinating and strangely lovable, at least as seen from the audience. But actually knowing her? That would have been work. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 13, 2014
“Séraphine” was haunting; Violette, for all its writhings, is familiar. Read full review
75
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeJun 11, 2014
In Devos’ hard-charging performance, she’s also fascinating, and that’s all a film requires. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDavid Lee DallasJun 9, 2014
By focusing on the tumultuous friendship between Violette LeDuc and Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Provost creates not so much a dichotomy of femininity as a funhouse mirror of it. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghJun 26, 2014
Violette doesn't abandon that playbook, but it does a better job than most of putting the viewer in its artist's headspace. Read full review
50
Boston GlobePeter KeoughAug 21, 2014
Violette demonstrates how suffering produces great art, and that the artist isn’t the only one who suffers for it. Read full review
50
The DissolveAndrew LapinJun 12, 2014
It’s a brutal argument to make: that the most relevant information to convey about the life of an influential writer is the fact that she struggled early and often. This approach may seem philosophically appropriate for a movie about existentialists, but dramatically, it makes the film a bit of a slog. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloJun 12, 2014
A few excerpts of Leduc’s prose spoken in voiceover, expressing the same feelings poetically, can’t compensate for over two hours of maudlin self-pity. It’s so annoying that dull shots of Leduc writing serve as a welcome respite. Read full review
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