L'inconnu du lac 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: A cautionary tale about finding love with an improper stranger. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: From a single setting, a lakeside gay cruising spot, and an old theme - the link between sex and death - Alain Guiraudie constructs an intricate film. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Carefully and often brilliantly creates its own Eden-like universe. Read more

Boyd van Hoeij, Variety: An absorbing and intelligent exploration of queer desire spiced up with thriller elements after one of the studly nudists goes missing. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, AV Club: The film's circumscribed scope is simultaneously its most intriguing and most limiting factor. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: A simple and ruthlessly effective exercise in minimal narrative and style, Alain Guiraudie's moral tale is so restrained and atmospheric that the nudity and graphic sex don't upstage the creepy mood of seductive, inescapable doom. Read more

Drew Hunt, Chicago Reader: A career-best effort by French writer-director Alain Guiraudie. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie is voyeuristic, sure, but in a way that evokes Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window more than William Friedkin's Cruising. Read more

Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter: A murderous love story whose serene setting hides a darker purpose. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie's tantalizingly erotic fable of love, passion and death. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: This lake is a sexual refuge, about to be stained by sin and blood. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: The film is a Hitchcockian murder story in which the Hitchcockian elements-style as well as content-are stood on their heads in order to realize a philosophical vision that's no less sophisticated than Hitchcock's own. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: A psychosexually intriguing blend of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and William Friedkin's Cruising ... Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: "Stranger by the Lake" is seductive and fascinating, but it is also a bit trapped in its own conceit, and in its carefully maintained emotional detachment. Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: Writer-director Alain Guiraudie has an imagistic talent for suspense and erotic byplay. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: A stunning minimalist erotic thriller that explores with arresting photography and economical use of dialogue how human identity is defined, and sometimes imprisoned, by our desires, drives, and passions. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Like his characters, [director Alain] Guiraudie is walking a tightrope, finding the point where sex and death exude a similar allure. You won't be able to look away. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Movies must go somewhere, plots must always kick in, and when this one does, that's where "Stranger by the Lake" begins to contract into something less creative than its odd setting and compelling compositions would suggest. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: There's too much metaphysical packaging material in the story; it's half Styrofoam peanuts. But its ideas are intriguing and its murky suspense is undeniable. Read more

Adam Nayman, Globe and Mail: The proximity between sex and death has rarely seemed as intimate as in Stranger by the Lake, the accomplished new film by gifted French director Alain Guiraudie. Read more

Bruce Demara, Toronto Star: Writer/director Alain Guiraudie weaves a dark and intriguing tale of desire and menace in a moralistically ambiguous setting, a gay cruising ground. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: The kind of taut, low-key thriller that Roman Polanski and Alfred Hitchcock would very much admire. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: There are very real, very potent emotions underlying every action, be it an explicit sex act, a lingering embrace, or a horrible realization that meting out death does not necessarily preclude love. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: The writer-director's attention to the anarchic pull of lust, simultaneously celebrated and reproved here, is sharper than ever. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: So much of this beguiling film's beauty is in how it sneaks up on you, the way genre elements quietly insinuate their way into the story. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: What sets the engrossing "Stranger by the Lake" apart is that its excesses seem to point to a moral purpose beyond shock or entertainment value. Read more