Caché 2005

Critics score:
89 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: What really makes Hidden so involving is Haneke's sometimes maddening insistence on keeping things vague. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A thriller with a powerful political subtext. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Politicized as it is, the movie never becomes didactic, thanks to the excellent acting and the firm, confident direction. Read more

Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic: This is a film you will be discussing for days, trying to figure out what actually happened and why. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Haneke has a deceptively random way with narrative. The scenes don't follow one another in conventional fashion. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: ... Cache is taut, terse, brisk and immediately engaging ... Read more

Kevin B. Lee, Chicago Reader: Cache is about how the way we look at people -- a spouse, a child, a homeless person, a security guard -- reflects our own humanity, exactly the sort of thing the best works of cinematic art aspire to reveal. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Haneke's patient, tip-toed assault turns Cache from a little movie about spooked haute-bourgeois media personalities into a sneaky and effective expose on the artifice of film. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: This is the most Hitchcockian of [director Michael] Haneke's films. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Contrarian that he is, Haneke does a much finer job forcing questions than providing an answer. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: There's a sense that Hitchcock is hovering in the background and cheering for Auteuil, who musters all his French superstardom to play a man having his mask of blandness torn off. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: One thing that cannot be argued is Haneke's ability to attract the best actors in cinema, perhaps by promising to take them places they have never been. Read more

Dallas Morning News: Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: I wasn't prepared to be easily won over by Cache, but it turns out to be his most human and affecting movie to date. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: ... a brilliantly sinister mystery fraught with guilt, deceit and denial. Read more

Ken Tucker, New York Magazine/Vulture: Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Cache never achieves any sort of emotional catharsis, or even resolution. But then Haneke's subject isn't catharsis, or resolution. It's repression -- and the willful amnesia of the wrongdoer. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: It's not the usual whodunit, but if you're open to having your cage rattled, you won't be disappointed. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Mr. Auteuil and Ms. Binoche are alternately graceful and scary as people pushed to the brink of madness through sheer duress, and the director does a tense job of capturing their panic as they drift from tranquility into chaos. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Too much of the plot's machinery turns out to be a metaphorical mechanism by which to pin the tail of colonial guilt on Georges and the rest of us smug bourgeois donkeys. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: This French film (in bad, washed-out English subtitles) is a quiet chiller. A family's social fabric unravels right before our eyes. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: While Cache offers food for thought, the last third is muddled. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: When Cache played at Cannes, some critics deplored its lack of a resolution. I think it works precisely because it leaves us hanging. Read more

Stephen Metcalf, Slate: Any work of art that embarrasses us for inclining toward warmth or decency (or, God forbid, humor) ought to be distrusted. On the other hand, I have found myself unable to shake Cache. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Haneke's characters are never easy to like, yet it's impossible not to empathize with their anxiety. It's his mastery of the craft, both visual and sonic, that pulls viewers along in its grip. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Austrian director Michael Haneke regularly makes films that provoke and disturb, but this is his first one in memory to work as a genuinely engaging thriller instead of an existential statement about violence or the absurdity of life. Read more

TIME Magazine: A creepy, complicitous thriller that ratchets up the tension even as it asks us to study the mechanics of film fright. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The film is almost claustrophobically personal and yet fascinatingly broad in scope, an ambitious undertaking by director Michael Haneke. Read more

Deborah Young, Variety: The tight pacing of Michael Hudecek and Nadine Muse's editing keeps the story fluid and focused but very concise, commanding audience attention from start to finish. Read more

Lisa Nesselson, Variety: Read more

David Ng, Village Voice: Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: Just when you think Haneke will slip away under the cloak of total obfuscation, he hits us with a long, final mega-shot. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Read more