Abuse of Weakness is endlessly fascinating and delicious and features the most fearless, complex performance of the year by Huppert.

| Feb 21, 2021

What supersedes all aspects of both the film's origination and directorial intent is another fascinating performance from Isabelle Huppert.

| Aug 30, 2019

It's a paradoxical statement, but as Abuse of Weakness shows, it's a contradiction well worth exploring.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 18, 2019

Despite ripe material and a strong central performance, it comes off flat and oddly unengaging.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 31, 2018

Abuse of Weakness is a fascinating, nicely restrained look at what in retrospect was a parasitic relationship.

| Aug 8, 2017

Abuse of Weakness is ultimately to watch how someone so desperately in need can be preyed upon no matter their own intelligence, wealth, or stature.

| Original Score: B | Jun 27, 2016

Huppert's performance in this film is outstanding. She's so convincing that I thought maybe she actually did suffer a stroke. She covers a range of emotions from laughter to rage in this film.

| Original Score: C+ | Jan 19, 2015

"Abuse of Weakness" is 20 minutes of a great movie and another 85 minutes of nothing much.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 2, 2014

Shot with clean, spare simplicity by the Dardennes' regular DP Alain Marcoen, this is a very simple work, almost prosaically so at times-as if Breillat wanted to purge the film of anything that wasn't strictly to the point.

| Sep 15, 2014

With clinical dispassion and narrative elegance, Breillat has constructed what she calls "a thriller about denial."

| Aug 22, 2014

The film's title refers to the French legal term for taking advantage of a person of diminished capacity. The story, though, suggests other interpretations.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 21, 2014

As a portrait of what it's like to be suddenly helpless, Abuse Of Weakness is never less than fascinating ...

| Original Score: B | Aug 21, 2014

This examination of power, greed, emotional manipulation and simple need is gripping and powerful to behold even if you don't know the story behind the story.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 15, 2014

[A] chilly, dark portrait of two control freaks locking horns.

| Aug 14, 2014

Huppert's performance single-handedly preserves interest in Abuse of Weakness, elevating the picture's askew mystery with a valuable sense of determination and, at times, despair.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 14, 2014

Breillat's self-conscious refusal to establish a realistic basis for this deeply mismatched relationship winds up weakening the film irreparably.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 14, 2014

A cautionary tale depicting a shocking example of man's inhumanity to (wo)man.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 14, 2014

The plot, though never less than engaging, occasionally tests believability - until you remember it's drawn from Breillat's life.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 14, 2014

Abuse Of Weakness is the director's attempt to account for actions that seem inexplicable, and make the audience understand and sympathize in kind.

| Original Score: 3.5/5.0 | Aug 13, 2014

Breillat's impressive film is a study of bodies and how we carry them, and it explores the manner in which weakness seeks out strength on an almost primal level, bypassing the higher modes of human thought.

| Aug 12, 2014