Even though this is a politically correct film, it still calls it out like it is without half measures. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 4, 2022

The Conquest carries strong themes of compromise in politics, compromise in love, and asks its characters to weigh the value of all this compromise.

| Mar 24, 2021

And so The Conquest promises a juicy behind-the-scenes look at the rise of this somehow seductive little man, but doesn't quite deliver.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 4, 2019

The Sarkozy story glistens, snakelike.

| Jun 19, 2013

The dialogue is punchy, but the film lacks visual personality, and the insights into Sarkozy and France as a whole don't cut very deep.

| Mar 7, 2012

"The Conquest" is like a French restaurant that serves small portions of tart appetizers and calls them freedom fries, yet begrudgingly we must salute the gall.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 24, 2012

The Conquest does not aspire to Shakespearean heights (press notes to the contrary) but remains more on the level of a well-made movie of the week...

| Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 23, 2012

Sarkozy seems to mean exactly what he says, even when he's lying for his cause, and Podalyds has the skill to demonstrate that.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 26, 2012

Maybe a documentary would have done the job better.

| Jan 9, 2012

The film is a vehement drama and a fitfully amusing snark fest set to Nicola Piovani's jaunty circus music. It winds up only half-succeeding at both.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 5, 2012

"The Conquest," a feature about recent French politics, makes me yearn for a similar American treatment of our own scene.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 5, 2012

"Conquest'' is a seriocomic portrait of naked ambition and a depiction of petty office politics on a national scale. It's a deadpan hoot that lacks the bite it could and arguably should have had.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 15, 2011

The performances are convincing, but American audiences may find little to care about in the Gallic-specific backstage machinations of Sarkozy's ascendancy.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 13, 2011

Denis Podalyds seems to be more like Nicolas Sarkozy than the president himself is this political tragi-comedy.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 23, 2011

Failing to find deeper meaning in their protagonist's crises, they tell the story in a way that will only hold the interest of those who already know it fairly well.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 18, 2011

Durringer has a good sense of pacing, and he keeps the various interlocking machinations reasonably comprehensible even for those of us who aren't experts in French political intrigue.

| Original Score: B | Nov 11, 2011

This delicious satire daring to depict current French President Nicolas Sarkozy's recent rise to power is a real upscale art-house pleaser.

| Nov 11, 2011

Watching Sarko steamroll his even-more-unctuous rivals has its pleasures, but how can this outrageous creature of raw ambition also be treated in such sobering terms? The Conquest tries to have it both ways.

| Nov 11, 2011

A lot gets lost in translation in "The Conquest,'' an account of Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 rise to the French presidency.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 11, 2011

A smart, involving and strikingly adult drama about Sarkozy's rise to power...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 10, 2011