Rois et reine 2004

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: There's a looseness to the camera work and storytelling that's appealingly breezy: This film feels, for better or worse, like real life. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: The film is delectable and keeps you eager to see what's served next, but also is ridiculously rich, overly long and difficult to digest. Still, it's a feast you won't want to miss. Read more

Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: While these characters' lives are melodramatic, individual scenes burst with kinetic energy from fast editing and an script that deftly underscores the destructive nature of male-female relationships. Read more

AV Club: Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The film is a soap opera that through layering and texture is made into something rich, strange, and unforgettable. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Category-defying film that's as smart and emotionally resonant as it is entertaining. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: By tempering the mania and offsetting the edginess of the deeply imperfect characters in this ambitiously free-form film, Desplechin offers that most old-form of balms -- compassion. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Contemporary and specific ... but the melodramas also play out on a universal plane, like the lives of the gods. Read more

David Edelstein, NPR's Fresh Air: An emotional jigsaw that will keep you engrossed for days, maybe years. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Arnaud Desplechin's sprawling drama exudes a go-for-broke determination that is frustrating and exhilarating. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A welter of narrative complication and piercing drama shot through with a rich vein of absurdist humor. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Kings and Queen is a marvelously textured and civilized study of two tormented souls finding redemption not in each other, but in themselves and in other people. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Kings and Queen is at times compelling, at times devastating, and at times long-winded. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie, directed by Arnaud Desplechin and written by him with Roger Bohbot, begins as such a straightforward portrait of ordinary life that it's unsettling to find layer after layer of reality peeled away. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: Desplechin's big, bold, iconoclastic feature Rois et Reine is a disconcerting film that can turn your head at the oddest moments. Read more

Susan Walker, Toronto Star: Funny, absurd, often mocking itself and always quoting cultural history. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Deborah Young, Variety: This enjoyable French pic welds together drama, melodrama and comedy in a blend with potentially strong European audience appeal. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: It's terrific filmmaking. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: It's a puzzle of a film, but not the kind that intimidates you with inscrutability so much as one that beckons you into its antic eccentricity. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: [Desplechin] gives these characters the time to develop, to display their nuances, to establish their relationships with each other, to talk out their destinies. Read more