74
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottIts images and scenes are suffused by an intensity that seems almost to be a quality of the light and air as they play across Ms. Chemla’s watchful, sometimes inscrutable features.
- 90The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThe Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThe 31-year-old Chemla (Camille Rewinds) is a revelation in the title role and utterly mesmerizing and credible whether she’s playing Jeanne at 20 or at 47.
- 90VarietyJay WeissbergVarietyJay WeissbergA Woman’s Life has the kind of majesty found not in the grand gesture but the modest detail, the kind that accumulates resonance with each seemingly minor event until the picture of a character becomes as complete as a painting by Ingres. Or a story by Maupassant.
- 90Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlVillage VoiceAlan ScherstuhlThe ending is a joy and a heartbreaker, but what lingers from this revelatory life is that compact world Jeanne inhabits, and how each tragedy, each happiness, and each everyday gesture together accrete into the woman we discover again and again.
- 70Screen DailyDan FainaruScreen DailyDan FainaruJudith Chemla is a perfect choice for the lead.
- 67Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerChristian Science MonitorPeter RainerChemla has an expressive face and she’s photographed lovingly, in a way that would probably have caught the attentions of the great French Impressionists, but ultimately she is more of a sculptural presence than a fully fleshed-out protagonist.
- 63Slant MagazineClayton DillardSlant MagazineClayton DillardThe choice of low-grade, handheld digital images further reduces the film to the clichés of revisionist literary filmmaking.
- 60CineVueJohn BleasdaleCineVueJohn BleasdaleA Woman's Life is a modest chamber piece, a series of sketches revealing a life of quiet desperation, which eschews melodrama and, for the most part, platitudes but exhibits great tenderness and sensitivity.
- 58The Film StageRory O'ConnorThe Film StageRory O'ConnorWhile the viewer might appreciate Brizé’s lack of compromise, for such a stoic and rather long period piece, A Woman’s Life offers little else for the audience to cling on to.
- 50The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloThe A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloMostly, though, A Woman’s Life frustrates because it’s neither entertaining nor illuminating to watch a character passively absorb constant misery.