| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2006

A self-satisfied, utterly hollow Bacchanal.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 18, 2005

110 minutes of Euro silliness mitigated only by the presence of Huppert and the striking ability of the actors to keep a straight face throughout this mess.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 29, 2005

Probably isn't for anyone not interested in the darkest corners of the human psyche, where sexual annihilation is the only response to a fallen world, where all moral bets are off, and where a boy's worst friend is his mother.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 8, 2005

[The climax] involves such a disturbing blend of unhealthy mother-son affection and physical pain that it gives new meaning to the term child -- not to mention audience -- abuse.

| Jul 7, 2005

It could stand as Exhibit A for why French auteurs are a tough sell to the average seeker of entertainment.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 1, 2005

The translation from the highly literary to the literalness of film isn't easy and too often, Ma Mre feels like a parody.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 1, 2005

Respectable, tightly coiled, but ultimately unrewarding.

| Jun 10, 2005

Honore uses an ultraserious, would-be stylish approach that ultimately renders the depraved proceedings far more boring than titillating.

Full Review | Jun 7, 2005

Garrel's performance here reveals Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers for the featherweight fantasy that it was. Ma Mre may appear grungier on the surface, but its themes run far deeper.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 26, 2005

It winds up making incest look absurdly swank.

| Original Score: C- | May 19, 2005

This tale of disaffected sexual depravity is practically a parody of the worst of French filmmaking.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 13, 2005

There's no attempt to get inside the sick minds of Helene and her buddies.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | May 13, 2005

Pretentious Eurotrash.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 12, 2005

Ma Mere may be ludicrous, but its cast displays a commitment that deserves more than grudging admiration.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 12, 2005

Huppert doesn't turn this object d'cypher role into exactly the sort of gay-son-as-Oedipus tribute that Dan Harris flubbed with last year's Imaginary Heroes.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2005

Lurching toward its inevitable incestuous showdown, Ma Mre makes a few hilarious attempts at the cerebral.

| May 10, 2005

The philosophising feels bolted on and the motivations of all the characters soon become simply too alien to comprehend.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 9, 2005