Metacritic-Rezensionen

Together with his extraordinary performers, Mr. Chéreau breathes life into characters who long ago set a course for death.

In Chéreau's hands, Gabrielle has an operatic quality that throws the repressive environment into sharp relief; the film works like a pressure cooker, seething with bottled passions that intermittently burst through with startling cruelty and violence.

At once robust and ethereal, this is an existential ghost story, with fresh blood pulsing through its veins.

A haunting and riveting work, unlike anything else you can see at the movies and as such an explicit challenge to the unambitious, anesthetic character of most contemporary cinema. But is it easy, or delightful, or fun? It is not.

Greggory anchors Gabrielle in manly bewilderment and rage, while Huppert claws the title character's way to self-awareness.

This highly stylized portrait of a loveless marriage at the beginning of the 20th century merges a claustrophobic theatricality with dazzlingly cinematic wide-screen compositions (the sumptuous cinematography is by Eric Gautier).

Gabrielle inspires mixed feelings; it is dialogue heavy but a treat for the eye.

Though it won't appeal to everyone, the concoction actually works, thanks to Huppert and Greggory's powerful negative chemistry.

Chereau keeps us locked inside their suffocatingly unhappy home, making for an intensely theatrical chamber piece.

A chilly, pretentious and talky drama.