74
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
23(82%)
mixed
5(18%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 28 Critic Reviews
100
Rohmer's films are renowned for their beauty, so it's surprising that he made a picture using digital video rather than film. But this was the right choice.
100
The effect is one of gorgeous puppets, a removed perspective that makes some of the most powerful political and social events in history seem like the sad, desperate flailing of monkeys.
91
Played by Lucy Russell with a defiant, unapologetic embrace of aristocratic privilege, Grace is a maddening yet fascinating character.
90
This is absorbing throughout--not just a history lesson but, as always with Rohmer, a story about individuals
90
If you can forget the world-historic significance of the mass revolution that overthrew Europe's oldest absolute monarchy -- or rather, subsume it in the mysteries of personality -- The Lady and the Duke is the stuff of human interest.
90
The director manages to evade both the stuffy antiquarianism and the pandering anachronism that subvert so many cinematic attempts at historical inquiry.
88
A vivifying film, though it's done in such a strange style that it takes a while to get used to it.
83
The technique is impressive. But it would count for little if the human story -- of a magnetic, resourceful, and, in the way of all Rohmer heroines, articulate woman who was mistress to the Duke of Orleans -- weren't engrossing on its own dramatic terms.
80
Just as interesting, if not more so, is how Rohmer integrates his very contemporary concerns into a period drama, how he creates characters who manage to be true to our times as well as their own.
80
Surprisingly manages never to grow boring -- which proves that Rohmer still has a sense of his audience.
