La tourneuse de pages 2006

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: A classical music thriller. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: This premise may sound all right on paper, but on-screen it doesn't really wash. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: What makes The Page Turner effective is that nothing about Francois' plan seems immediately obvious or predictable. Read more

Michael Hardy, Boston Globe: The stakes in this story seem too low to justify its audience's attention. If The Page Turner were a novel, it would hardly be a page turner. Why should we hold films to a lower standard? Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: An impeccably made psychological melodrama. It's a story of destruction, dependence and betrayal set not only in the world of classical music but in the French culture of politeness where form and decorum are everything. Read more

Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: The serving temperature of revenge has seldom been colder, nor the time of preparation longer, than for this gourmet French plat froid from writer-director Denis Dercourt. Read more

John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press: This must be what a French movie-of-the-week look like, deemed art here because of the subtitles. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: The schematic requirements of the setup, combined with the tight-lipped demeanor of the two lead characters, makes for arid moviegoing. Eighty-five minutes can seem much longer than it really is when you spend the entire time waiting for a shoe to drop. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The characters are sophisticated. The subtexts involve class and snobbery and sex. The mood is uncomfortably chill. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Director and co-writer Denis Dercourt infuses Melanie's calculating seduction of the family with a sense of genuine menace. You will not be bored. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Elegant and subtle. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: I find myself more responsive to the malignancy in The Page Turner than in all the other recent, all too numerous excursions into the darker side of human nature. Call me inconsistent if you wish, but do see The Page Turner. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: A fine example of the excellence of French genre film right now: A dark tale of revenge with an inscrutable heart, ice in its veins and an electric undercurrent of eroticism, it also might be the best-photographed picture I've seen so far this year. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: In retrospect it's clear that when the filmmakers had a chance to hammer something they tapped it, instead. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Teresa Budasi, Chicago Sun-Times: This film, like Melanie in her fitted suit and straight, blond ponytail, is a taut little affair, clocking in at a no-nonsense 85 minutes. She gets in, gets out, her work is done, much like her long-ago audition. Read more

Susan Walker, Toronto Star: [Director] Dercourt's manipulation of his characters and his imagery can be a little heavy-handed, but there's nary a wrong note in the performances of his exceedingly fine cast. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Denis Dercourt's stylish, subtle and highly assured film is a pleasingly suspenseful psychological drama in the style of Hitchcock or early Chabrol. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: There's little recognition of the difference between simmering suspense and sluggish pacing, a sure kiss of death for a thriller. Read more

Lisa Nesselson, Variety: A tight little emotional thriller about a music lover who becomes a musician-hater. Read more

Jim Ridley, Village Voice: The movie saves the full strength of her toxicity for a kicker that's almost gleeful in its sangfroid; Dercourt's parting coup de grace is like getting shanked with an icicle. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: It's a small French delicacy, tart, acerbic and cynical, that focuses on three or four characters and yet manages to bring them and their dilemmas to vivid life. Read more