Violette 2013

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A literate, leisurely and lovely telling of one woman's attempt to find what Virginia Woolf famously called "a room of one's own." Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: The trailblazing feminist writer Violette Leduc gets a biopic fully worthy of her complex life and work. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: Everything Leduc does in the film, apart from write, makes her look like a walking nightmare, though her awful behavior is clearly meant to be justified by her artistry. Read more

Barbara VanDenburgh, Arizona Republic: Yes, her capacity for such deeply wretched feelings is necessary to her art; the film succeeds at convincing us of that. But it doesn't inspire a lot of sympathy for a woman who is so clearly the author of her own misery. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: "Violette" demonstrates how suffering produces great art, and that the artist isn't the only one who suffers for it. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Provost is attracted to "outsider" women whose lives are indistinguishable from their art. Read more

Missy Schwartz, Entertainment Weekly: She [Emmanuelle Devos] gives a tremendous performance, somehow managing to turn an emotion as ugly as self-loathing into something beautiful to behold. Read more

Boyd van Hoeij, Hollywood Reporter: Though it has a rough start, this is a beautifully crafted and performed period drama. Read more

Inkoo Kang, Los Angeles Times: So compelling, even thrilling, in its frank depictions of female sexual voracity, professional egotism and twisted variants on the Electra complex that it's easy to overlook [its] shaggy, uneven plotting. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: Few films have conveyed with such understanding about how a creative soul taps into all that interior turmoil and then somehow shape these thoughts into artful prose that can scald and heal. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Frank, harsh, emotionally harrowing and, much like its subject, difficult. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Leduc is an author worth knowing about, but this is a character only an already-established fan could love. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Violette's hold on life can be terrifying, at times ugly, but what she finally makes of that life is beautiful. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's a perfect approach to Leduc, whose work is so grounded in the messy, fleshy realities of life, it scandalized critics with its frank treatment of taboo subjects such as lesbianism and incest. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A strong account of a literary friendship, a case of two opposites attracting, even if the nature of the attraction was different on each side. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Not since Jane Campion's "Angel at My Table" has there been such a moving and meticulously crafted period biopic about a tortured feminist writer who deserves wider recognition. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: It's a movie about coming to peace with solitude, leagues beyond most biopics. Read more

Abby Garnett, Village Voice: Provost's film, like its heroine, is full of active, sparking nerves. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Movies about the literary process can prove problematic. The act of writing is a solitary one. Yet "Violette" mostly avoids the pitfalls associated with movies about writers by limiting the scenes of Violette scribbling furiously in a notebook. Read more