A very bittersweet film about the traps of loneliness, the difficulties of marital relationships and the philosophical dilemmas of family ties. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 6, 2020

It adds up to more than the sum of its parts, but you may not realize it for a day or so.

| Oct 5, 2019

Desplechin's brilliant new effort is not so much a film about mad people, but one, perhaps like [Lars von Trier's] The Idiots, with a madness running through it... A treat from start to finish.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 24, 2019

A willing victim, a godlike father, the collusion between the two and from this perversion comes deep and unsettling woes -- it's an odd concoction, one part hemlock to two parts froth. But I think I've seen it all before, and before and before.

| Aug 24, 2017

A highly unstable compound of melodrama and offbeat comedy that elicits more shrugs of confusion than sighs of satisfaction

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 17, 2010

Its novelistic breadth, pitched intensity and on-the-fly shooting style pull the viewer smack-dab into the middle of these lives.

| Mar 1, 2007

Desplechin's big, bold, iconoclastic feature Rois et Reine is a disconcerting film that can turn your head at the oddest moments.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 30, 2006

Funny, absurd, often mocking itself and always quoting cultural history.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 30, 2006

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 1, 2006

I can't quite get my head around it; Ismael is too cartoony and Nora is too icy.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 10, 2006

[M]ixes with aplomb equal measures of intellectual screwball comedy and dark metaphysical tragedy, though part of the joke may be that one often can't tell which is which...

| Jan 3, 2006

the film proves, at the very least, that Desplechin is a director that garners due attention

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 2, 2005

This is a first-rate melo-dramedy under the influence of director Arnaud Desplechin.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 2, 2005

While these characters' lives are melodramatic, individual scenes burst with kinetic energy from fast editing and an script that deftly underscores the destructive nature of male-female relationships.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Oct 29, 2005

Great filmmaking and, as does not always follow, a great film.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 4, 2005

It is well-acted and written with a rigorous effort to skirt cliche, and it has the savor of real life throughout.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Sep 16, 2005

Heroic and absurdist...

Full Review | Original Score: '3.5/4' | Sep 2, 2005

There's a looseness to the camera work and storytelling that's appealingly breezy: This film feels, for better or worse, like real life.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 26, 2005

His scenes ripple with undercurrents of awkward emotions... creating a film both devastating and uplifting, but he passes no judgments.

| Original Score: A | Aug 25, 2005

Kings and Queen, full of passion and humor, madness and grief, is close to a masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 18, 2005