74
Metascore
14 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The New York TimesA.O. ScottThe New York TimesA.O. ScottEverything depends on the subtlety of the direction and the charisma of the performances. Augustine is intellectually satisfying partly because it communicates its ideas at the level of feeling, through the uncanny power of Soko’s face and body.
- 88Slant MagazineTomas HachardSlant MagazineTomas HachardAlice Winocour's take on this true story carries the superficial trappings of a period drama, but its perspective is entirely contemporary.
- 80VarietyLeslie FelperinVarietyLeslie FelperinAnchored by two intense, intertwined perfs by veteran Vincent Lindon and relative newcomer Soko, a musician who also composed the pic’s growling, atmospheric score, this period drama offers a coolly febrile study of madness, Victorian sexual politics and power.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterNeil YoungThe Hollywood ReporterNeil YoungAugustine's script is a coherent and valid artistic reinterpretation of the case, told against an unfussily atmospheric evocation of late 19-century Paris - persuasive even though the dialogue seldom sounds particularly old-fashioned.
- 80Time OutEric HynesTime OutEric HynesPlays like a gothic prequel to David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," one in which human flesh is viewed as both horrific and erotic terrain.
- 80Village VoiceErnest HardyVillage VoiceErnest HardyThe film is something of a paradox, simultaneously passionate and dispassionate, its ending tethered to both bruised triumph and a sense of things falling apart.
- 80Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonWall Street JournalJohn AndersonSoko is terrific, but it is Mr. Lindon who delivers the performance of the film, his internalized consternation amounting to an eloquent dispatch from the war between the sexes.
- 80Los Angeles TimesSheri LindenLos Angeles TimesSheri LindenThe film's dark beauty and the quiet intensity of the performances have a discomforting pull.
- 67The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyThe A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyIt’s ironic that a movie about social restrictions is at its best when it restrains itself—that is, when it treats its characters as characters rather than figures, and its plot as drama rather than statement.
- 60New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanSokolinski, a French pop singer better known at home as Soko, is fully in tune with Winocour’s sharp vision. Her intense, almost accusatory turn feels like the opposing image of Keira Knightley’s intellectual neurosis in 2011’s similarly themed “A Dangerous Method.” Where that film found some lightness within the dark, this one drags an historic darkness into the light.