This well-acted, wonderfully photographed biopic explores the troubled life of French feminist author Violette Leduc and her complicated ties to Simone de Beauvoir...

| Jun 30, 2020

As a portrait of the relationship between these two women, the film is exceptionally engaging and engrossing. Emmanuelle Devos and Sandrine Kiberlaine deliver rewarding performances, strikingly at odds as they are genuinely complimentary.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 30, 2019

It's refreshing to see a film that centres on a daring female creative who is just as self-indulgent and self-pitying as any male artist.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2019

[Violette] is a nice change in that it focuses on not one, but two women writers who work hard over a period of years to become successful artists (both critically and financially) in their own right.

| Mar 12, 2019

The film was directed and co-written by Martin Provost, who's clearly drawn to women once called "difficult." He uses their exploits to explore big themes - be it the glory and danger of self-expression, or the sexual politics of culture.

| May 16, 2018

The relationship between two historic literary figures has rarely been so fiercely drawn as it is in Martin Provost's French drama.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 6, 2017

... this handsome biographical drama takes on a revered but troubled French artist who came out of poverty and neglect and rose to fame. Violette, however, is more about her mother issues, her anxieties over money...

| Oct 28, 2016

She [Emmanuelle Devos] gives a tremendous performance, somehow managing to turn an emotion as ugly as self-loathing into something beautiful to behold.

| Original Score: A- | Dec 3, 2014

Emmanuelle Devos stars as volatile feminist writer Violette Leduc in Martin Provost's epic biopic, with Sandrine Kiberlain as her unrequited literary love, Simone de Beauvoir.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 13, 2014

Whilst requiring an investment of audience, it is full on without being emotionally draining and is a remarkable character study of a woman coming to terms with herself.

| Oct 3, 2014

[Leduc] remains a small and rather irritating sideshow to the more powerful St Germain crowd, and the focus on her life is surprisingly dull.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 3, 2014

The film is not just a passing parade of famous names but a journey through Leduc's struggles to overcome a tragic childhood, a domineering mother and a world that was unprepared for her candour and intense, confessional style of writing.

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

It's Devos's outstanding performance that ensures this compels as both cultural history and human drama.

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

Martin Provost ambitiously expands his tale across decades to give us a substantial look into a changing society through the eyes of one, influential protagonist.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 3, 2014

For all the chaos and pain, it is weirdly romantic: a glorious tale of wish-fulfilment, confirming that writers really can attain self-validation through the pen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 2, 2014

A beautiful true-life character study that does elegant justice to a largely unheralded writer.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 2, 2014

A deeply satisfying combination of fascinating subject, ace performers and refined directorial sensibility.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 2, 2014

The movie really captures the often lonely, torturous existence of the true artist-a huge feat in itself.

| Oct 2, 2014

The focus on wordsmith over words is spectacularly well-served by Devos, whose volcanic expression of inner frustration will put you off writing forever.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 30, 2014

Rarely is a female friendship granted such deep and delicious complexity onscreen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 29, 2014