A moody and meandering melodrama.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 16, 2022

The film is all insinuation and implication.

| May 5, 2022

Nightcap is an intriguing old-fashioned thriller starring the incomparable Isabelle Huppert as an icy queen of a Chocolate Empire, who learns the hard way that neither money nor murder can buy you happiness.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 3, 2020

One of the most commanding of screen actresses, Isabelle Huppert, deploys three subtle looks: ready to kill someone; has just killed someone; slight confusion when anyone wonders about her inherent correctness.

| Sep 16, 2020

We can rejoice that he carries on, breathes his profession as his native air, makes pictures of varying quality but persistently makes them.

| Mar 5, 2013

Predictable? Maybe, but for artists like these the motivation is always more important than the act itself.

| May 5, 2010

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 3, 2005

The ensemble cast all sparkled.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 13, 2003

Weighty and ponderous but every bit as filling as the treat of the title.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 26, 2003

Huppert's show to steal and she makes a meal of it, channeling Kathy Baker's creepy turn as the repressed mother on Boston Public as much as 8 Women's Augustine.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 7, 2003

A fascinating piece...assured and frequently witty.

| Original Score: B | Dec 2, 2002

A tasty appetizer that leaves you wanting more.

| Original Score: C+ | Nov 29, 2002

The big finish is a bit like getting all excited about a chocolate eclair and then biting into it and finding the filling missing.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 29, 2002

An elegant, exquisitely modulated psychological thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 8, 2002

Hitch would enjoy the way Chabrol plays with the audience (including the expertly interwoven Lizt requiem)

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 29, 2002

Like being invited to a classy dinner soiree and not knowing anyone. You leave the same way you came -- a few tasty morsels under your belt, but no new friends.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 24, 2002

Credit Huppert as much as Chabrol for the film's success.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 21, 2002

This is not Chabrol's best, but even his lesser works outshine the best some directors can offer.

| Oct 21, 2002

It's enough to watch Huppert scheming, with her small, intelligent eyes as steady as any noir villain, and to enjoy the perfectly pitched web of tension that Chabrol spins.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2002

Merci Pour le Chocolat has a restraint and rigor that we don't see in commercial American films, the kind that a director creates when he has no interest in sentimentality or in soliciting the audience's favor.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2002