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Movie Description
A huge hit in France, where it was nominated for seven Cesar Awards (the equivalent of Hollywood's Oscars), KINGS AND QUEEN is an intelligent, extremely entertaining and complex film featuring a vastly talented cast. Cleverly mixing genres, director and cowriter Arnaud Desplechin (ESTHER KAHN, MY SEX LIFE...OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT) tells the story of an embattled, extraordinary single mother named Nora, played by the ravishing Emmanuelle Devos (READ MY LIPS). When Nora visits her father, Louis (Maurice Garrel), in Grenoble, where he is taking care of her son, Elias (Valentin Lelong), for the summer, she is devastated to learn that Louis is seriously ill. The impending death of her father, a successful writer, sends Nora seeking her troubled sister, Chloe (Nathalie Boutefeu), and one of Nora's ex-husbands, Ismael (Mathieu Amalric), an eccentric violist who has recently been committed to an institution. Meanwhile, the manic Ismael, who has a tight bond with Elias, develops an unusual relationship with the suicidal Arielle (Magali Woch) in the hospital, where he is treated by the beautiful and alluring Madame Vasset (Catherine Deneuve) as his drug-addicted lawyer, Mamanne (Hippolyte Girardot), tries to get him released. Compelling and funny, heartbreaking and tragic, KINGS AND QUEEN is a highly original, thoroughly satisfying drama that plays much faster than its 150 minutes.
Industry Reviews
"[A] shocking deus ex machina follows a welter of narrative complication and piercing drama shot through with a rich vein of absurdist humor."
New York Times - Manohla Dargis (05/13/2005)
"[S]prawling and exuberant....KINGS AND QUEEN burrows into your psyche and stays there for days..."
Los Angeles Times - Carina Chocano (05/20/2005)
"[G]ripping, highly original....Desplechin offers that most old-form of balms -- compassion."
Entertainment Weekly - Lisa Schwarzbaum (05/27/2005)
"[The] jazzy, free-association structure allows some rich riffs on big themes like death, love, fatherhood and suicide..."
Uncut - Edward Lawrenson (07/01/2005)
"It is good to see Desplechin return to the joie de vivre of film-making..."
Sight and Sound - Demetrios Matheou (08/01/2005)
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