Critic Reviews

Bonitzer evinces an appreciable warmth toward his creations that you feel even from the analytic distance he establishes.

Complicated enough to lose a casual viewer but never so convoluted that André and co. are sublimated into the system around them (which would have been fatal for a film so attuned to the relationship between personal interest and collective perception), Bonitzer’s plot spins forward at the speed of an auctioneer’s mouth until raw suspense becomes appropriately inextricable from meaningless gibberish.

Auction is good, underhanded fun, and even the loose ends that Bonitzer leaves hanging — perhaps this had a longer cut at some point — leave one uncertain about how this high-stakes poker game will play out or who might upend the table with not-quite-all-their-cards on it for that final hand.

Not everything on screen ultimately works here, with certain characters and situations more credible than others. But the director manages to spin a clever modern-day morality tale mixing art, social class and big bucks.