La demoiselle d'honneur (2004)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Claude Chabrol

Writers:

Claude Chabrol (writer)
Pierre Leccia (writer)

Release Date:

17 November 2004 (Belgium)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama | Romance

Plot:

A hard-working young man meets and falls in love with his sister's bridesmaid. He soon finds out how disturbed she really is.

Plot Keywords:

Love | Bridesmaid | Murder | Cell Phone | Basement

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Benoît Magimel	...	Philippe Tardieu
Laura Smet	...	Stéphanie "Senta" Bellange
Aurore Clément	...	Christine
Bernard Le Coq	...	Gérard Courtois
Solène Bouton	...	Sophie Tardieu
Anna Mihalcea	...	Patricia Tardieu
Michel Duchaussoy	...	Le clochard
Suzanne Flon	...	Madame Crespin
Eric Seigne	...	Jacky
Pierre-François Dumeniaud	...	Nadeau
Philippe Duclos	...	Capitaine Dutreix
Thomas Chabrol	...	Lieutenant José Laval
Isolde Barth	...	Rita (as Isild Barth)
Mazen Kiwan	...	Pablo
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Chantal Banlier	...	La caissière épicerie
Jacqueline Cassard	...	Madame Bertillon
Brigitte Chamarande	...	Madame Soupin
Emmanuel Faure
Pascal Franks
Pierre Galliard
Florent Gibassier	...	Le serveur de pizza
Vincent Guillerminet
Joëlle Legua
Isabelle Leprince	...	Madame Pélissier
Isabelle Mamère	...	Nathalie Dumont
Jean-Pierre Niobe		(as Jean-Pierre Niobé)
Cécile Peroua
Taïeb		(as Taieb)
Michel Vivier

Also Known As:

Die Brautjungfer (Germany)
La damigella d'onore (Italy)
The Bridesmaid (International: English title)

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

France | Germany | Italy

Language:

French

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS

Certification:

Brazil:16 | France:U | Portugal:M/16 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Bavaria Filmstudios, Geiselgasteig, Grünwald, Bavaria, Germany

Company:

Alicéléo

Trivia:

There are four members of the Chabrol family in the crew : Claude's two sons ( actor Thomas and composer Matthew ), his wife ( scipt supervisor Aurore ) and his stepdaughter ' first assistant Cécile Maistre )

Hysterical household

This movie did not particularly convince me. Maybe my expectations went in a completely wrong direction but nevertheless I discovered some flaws that really disturbed my pleasure of this basically interesting film.

The plot line grows more and more absurd and - in its absurdity - predictable as the story goes on. This would not matter to me (as I do not really mind that we are never given an explanation for the strange and questionable features that strike us right from the beginning, especially in connection with Senta and the bust) if the characters were a little more subtly portrayed. All of the characters (Magimel's at the least) are exaggerated and near-hysterical, and therefore close to various type clichés (the rebelling teen daughter stealing, colouring her hair AND piercing her nose; the bridegroom, who is revealed as an idiot the instant we see him, calling his bride embarrassing terms of endearment; the mother smiling hopefully throughout as if she was on drugs). I am sure all this is not due to bad acting but done so intentionally. But I fail to understand what kind of quality it is supposed to add to the film. Humour? I don't know; I laughed occasionally but not very often.

This is the kind of film that I am sure is fun making; but then it should not be shown publicly.