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Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's a strangely unsatisfying combination of bloodless observations and unresolved sexuality. But Diane Kruger's queen, a mature beauty mourning the loss of her youth, is a vivid portrait of willfulness, childishness and genuine neediness. Read more
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Benoit Jacquot's tense, absorbing, pleasurably original look at three days in the life and lies of a doomed monarch ... Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: "Farewell, My Queen" is worth a look simply for its look. Read more
Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: The guillotine's blade is, as yet, nowhere to be heard. But you can feel Jacquot's pleasure is slicing and dicing this material in novel ways. Read more
Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Jacquot takes a refreshingly understated approach to costume drama, avoiding historical generalizations to focus on the particulars of palace life and the psychological states of individual characters. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Farewell, My Queen was shot in Versailles, but its flat schematism only highlights that the backdrops had a better story to tell. Read more
Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter: Historical drama set in the early days of the French revolution is intelligent Euro eye candy at its most lavish. Read more
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Matching the strength of these actresses and their personal drama is the film's masterful sense of time and place - the way it makes us feel that this was how it was during four pivotal days in July 1789 as the wheels came off the French monarchy. Read more
John Anderson, Newsday: We know what will happen, of course, but Jacquot still manages to create tension, as well as a semi-soap opera, among the let-them-cake-eaters of post-Enlightenment France. Read more
Richard Brody, New Yorker: Jacquot gazes avidly at this closed-in world of women; if his camera pressed any closer to them, it would be subcutaneous. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Just in time for Bastille Day! -- this is a nice corrective to the new-wave madness of Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette." Read more
Mark Jenkins, NPR: Farewell, My Queen has some routine period-drama moments, but at its boldest it foretells a time when a single girl can be a free woman. Read more
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Think of it as eating a rather rich piece of cake - even if the real Marie Antoinette never actually did suggest anything of the kind. Read more
Kyle Smith, New York Post: Jacquot's lavish decor and costumes are like the perfume the women use instead of bathing: They may cover up the willful carelessness at the center of the project, but it's still there. Read more
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Although it was shot at Versailles, and its actors are dressed to the 18th-century nines, Farewell, My Queen has a loose, reportorial intimacy about it. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Benoit Jacquot's engrossing film tells a story we know well, seen from a point of view we may not have considered. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: As we follow her through the monarchy's abrupt collapse, "Farewell, My Queen" gives us intimate, unflaggingly energetic history as seen from the servants' quarters. Read more
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Farewell, My Queen" is a layer cake of royal pleasures, rote protocols and revolutionary politics. For skeptics who thought this story had grown stale, let them eat their words. Read more
Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: Jacquot injects a welcome shot of immediacy into the costume drama proceedings with an off-center vantage point and dynamic camerawork. Read more
Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: Jacquot has chosen wisely in casting Lea Seydoux in the key role of Sidonie, whose luminous but watchful eyes suggest a soul wise beyond her years. Read more
Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Jacquot ... turns his audience into Peeping Toms, limiting our views of Her Majesty and her entourage in accordance with where Sidonie happens to be at a given moment. Read more
Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: The details of the plot are unimportant: that is the main point made by the skillful director, Benoit Jacquot. It is the slowness with which they realize what is happening that fascinates. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: Deftly captures the sense of impending revolution from within the mirrored halls of Versailles. Read more
Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: The pleasure of Jacquot's film is in watching various strains of discreet, heated, and deluded passionate attachment performed. Read more
Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: The foreboding and chaos contrast neatly with the lavish costumes and sets. Read more