Abuse of Weakness

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Helder F @uniquecliches Apr 14, 2023 This a movie of a director -Maud- who has a stroke, which renders her with a substantial motor deficit to her left side. After her stroke she continues with her career goals, preparing to direct her new movie, when she decides to cast a crook to star her movie. Up to this point the movie is understandable. Afterward the movie is just plain and lifeless. The movie becomes for the remainder almost 90 minutes a series of boring and lifeless conversations between the two, with him clearly stealing from her and with her apathetic. I ended up fast- forwarding to the end just to see the same apathetic attitude on her. I understand this is supposed to reflect a true story. But we never watch the story unfold. We watch a traumatized account of what happened. It shows how one feels that the story unfolded. In other words, the movie tells a story how the protagonist believed it happened - in a dissociative manner after the trauma - but surely not how the story did unfold. And that's why the boring becomes so lifeless - because it's so emotionless/ guarded -a reaction post trauma. Well, great acting wasted on such a terrible script. See more

May 15, 2015 A truly fascinating and realistic character study of a tough woman dealing with the impact of a stroke on her abilities. The three things that make this film work are 1. Isabelle Huppert's flawless work and charisma, 2. It is loosely based on Breillat's own experience and, 3. It presents a altogether surprising view of a con-artist conning a woman who almost seems to want him to push her to the level of life that most terrifies her. An audacious study of helplessness, manipulation and survival. We may not like either character, but Maud is one character that is fascinating to watch. See more

Nov 8, 2014 A wasted opportunity. This film has important things to say, but leaves most of them to the end. Leading up to that seems like a rather vapid, long vanity piece for Huppert. Just because she is an actor who moves her face little, is not a reason to make the audience look at her in interminable closeup, as if we otherwise wouldn't see what she is doing. Problems with continuity and editing, particularly in the depiction of the disability, risk mocking it. At one point Maud loses control of her body, can barely move her legs, then immediately lies on her back and kicks the hell out of her concrete bunker style door. Really? There are pointlessly offensive scenes: a senile old woman is insulted about her incontinence, and a very real-looking baby is shaken for a long time - the callousness of the characters who do these things was lost because the scenes are dreadful. The prevailing emotional climate in the film is cold, as are the production values. The festival audience was perceptibly annoyed and frustrated with the film and it risks being viewed as time and money thrown away, which is a pity, because its issues of need and exploitation, and the power of people with disability to make their own decisions, are worthy ones for the cinema. See more

Nov 2, 2014 Starts and ends in the same place and goes nowhere in between. See more

Sep 7, 2014 Huppert in a film by her long-time friend, Catherine Breillat based upon Breillat's own experience. How can you go wrong? See it. Huppert remains the most fearless actor working. See more

Gina W @RT47387387 Sep 2, 2014 It was difficult to watch this woman being manipulated so easily into giving large amounts of money to a known con artist. See more

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Abuse of Weakness

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