Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

What makes Private Fears so extraordinary is not just how it completely upends the expectations that have come to seem inherent in such a structure, but how Resnais constantly pushes the boundaries of his, well, let's call it visual depiction.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 4, 2008

What reaches us, most of all, are the hidden, unmet longings that keep the film's Parisian characters from finding true happiness.

| Oct 27, 2007

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 4, 2007

Not one he'll be remembered for, but a cut above.

| Jul 20, 2007

Private Fears is so fluently made that its edginess only gradually becomes evident. It's both funny and sad, without underlining anything, and the playing is as good as you would expect from Resnais's regulars.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 20, 2007

Ayckbourn's play might have made frothy fun of this comedie humaine, on screen this feels a poor, airless thing.

| Jul 20, 2007

No one would argue that this slight six-hander is one of Resnais's greatest movies, but it's far from an embarrassment, and even its strained comic business is enclosed within a prevailing atmosphere of wistful resignation.

| Jul 20, 2007

Neither comic, nor tragic, nor tragicomic, the movie manages to be entirely inconsequential, gesturing at emotional truths which it is quite unable to embody.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 20, 2007

Although now well into his eighties, Resnais brings an elegance and lightness of touch to this romantic roundelay - it's not the most profound musing on life and love, but it's eminently watchable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 20, 2007

Beautifully judged ensemble pieces.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 20, 2007

An insightful reflection on relationships and solitude.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 20, 2007

The tenderness with which Resnais observes their efforts makes for genuinely enchanting entertainment.

| Original Score: 4/6 | Jun 23, 2007

Private Fears suffers from [director Alain] Resnais' inability to open it up and give it the look and pulse of a film.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 15, 2007

Resnais shapes affecting performances from a polished cast. He creates a warm, comic melancholy.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 8, 2007

Resnais has always been an expressionist, using his settings and compositions to evoke the inner states of his characters. Here, tying expressionism to social critique, he becomes an improbable but unmistakable blood brother of Carl Dreyer.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 8, 2007

A film about love and blunders done from the perspective of age, crafted by writer Alan Ayckbourn, 68, and director Alain Resnais, 85. Our younger directors and screenwriters should show this much brilliance and feeling.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 8, 2007

Few filmmakers portray emotional detachment so achingly well.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 25, 2007

Private Fears in Public Places, a masterpiece by any measure, is fresh, immediate and contemporary, but its wintry yet warm perspective is suffused with the wisdom and experience of a great filmmaker who turns 85 on June 2.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 4, 2007

It's a Parisian romantic roundelay with sundry couples connecting and disconnecting, but it looks and sounds like no sex comedy ever made: It's transcendentally yummy.

| Apr 23, 2007