Lighthearted as it is, Venus in Fur has the rare effect of filtering the viewer's life through its own extreme lens.

| Sep 21, 2017

While the extraordinarily talented Polish-born director rarely falters in translating the source's theatrical strengths, his Venus in Fur feels oddly impersonal, lacking the trademark touch of Polanski perversity.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 4, 2014

What plays out is roller-coaster ride of shifting identity and sexual brinkmanship...Mischievous and sadistic by turns, it becomes a deadly serious battle of the sexes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 23, 2014

Venus In Fur is essentially a weightless skit, a parody of those hoary old archetypes of Man and Woman. But it's also a tribute to Seigner, who seizes the gift of a role that allows her to be sexy, funny and imposing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 17, 2014

"Venus in Fur" is a stellar achievement.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 17, 2014

Wickedly smart and wickedly playful, Roman Polanski's adaptation of David Ives' Tony-nominated Venus in Fur works on so many levels, it's almost dizzying.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 11, 2014

Never underestimate Roman Polanski.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 10, 2014

The haunted-house lighting is a perfect match for the claustrophobic intimacy of this two-hander - and camouflage, perhaps, for the fact that "Venus in Fur" remains more play than film.

| Jul 10, 2014

Whether you like it or not, Roman Polanski is a great artist, and even the minor films of his fugitive decades glimmer with the claustrophobia and sardonic bleakness of his greatest work.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2014

One thing that makes the dialogue-heavy movie so compelling (and also something that Polanski does so well) is an undercurrent of dread.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2014

Maybe you see where all this is going. But even if you do, getting there is still good, queasy fun.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 10, 2014

Pay attention to the camera, and you will see that Polanski is a clinician. He is in the thrall of no one.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2014

The couple's movie-long pas de deux, during which time a reversal of roles takes place and the inner Thomas is exposed to the world (us), is staged with delicious irony and ingenuity by Mr. Polanski

| Jul 7, 2014

The film has a creepy allure but, as movies featuring full-bore sexual gamesmanship often do, it wears thin.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 7, 2014

"Venus in Fur," a whip-smart dissection of gender politics via some teasing S&M, is arch. So arch in fact that it is surprising it's a Roman Polanski film.

| Jul 3, 2014

Ever the alchemist, Roman Polanski continues his quest for the process whereby theatre is transmuted and reforged into film.

| Jun 30, 2014

Roman Polanski's been making films about psycho-sexual mind games for decades, and when his opening shot poses his stage director next to a very phallic cactus, you know he's at it again.

| Original Score: 7.5/10 | Jun 20, 2014

Polanski's film is wonderfully light on its feet - it never feels hemmed in, though it also never leaves the space in which it begins - but it lands its punches.

| Jun 20, 2014

If you didn't see the play onstage and don't know what you're missing, this Venus in Fur has its demonic, masochistic charms.

| Jun 20, 2014

You'd be hard pressed to imagine a more seemingly perfect match of director and material than Roman Polanski and "Venus in Fur." Too bad it isn't a wickeder, subtler, more imaginative movie.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 20, 2014