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Brother and Sister

Frère et soeur

2022

Arnaud Desplechin

Marion Cotillard, Melvil Poupaud, Golshifteh Farahani, Patrick Timsit ...

4.9

280

Drama The story revolves around a brother and sister who are nearing their fifties - Alice is an actress, Louis was a teacher and a poet. They no longer speak to one another and have been avoiding each other for over twenty years, but the death of their parents will force them to cross paths.

	Media	Author	Review
		Lisa Nesselson Screendaily	"Desplechin has a gift for examining grief and pain but often leavens the dismay with humour or irony (...) that delicate balance is what keeps the proceedings compelling"
		Ben Croll The Wrap	"Like a musician returning to an earlier songbook with a downbeat timbre and a paired down set of instruments, 'Brother and Sister' feels, for good or ill, like 'Desplechin Unplugged.'"
		Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"This is exasperatingly nonsensical and humourless (...) Yet I admit there is technique and gusto to the way it is put together (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Sheri Linden The Hollywood Reporter	"The film moves between the two main characters with energy, but it takes its time illuminating, to the extent that it does, what makes them tick, letting them rail and dissemble and perform"
		Valerie Complex Deadline	"It starts promisingly. The first act is sharply paced and easy to keep up with, but it immediately goes off the rails as soon as act two drops"
		Guy Lodge Variety	"[It] makes no bones about its dialed-to-11 melodramatic agenda; that attention-grabbing intensity soon dissipates, however, in the gauzy, maudlin study of toxic sibling relations that ensue"
		Elena Lazic The Playlist	"Our understanding of why the two protagonists behave the way they do builds up cumulatively. It generously makes space for the entirety of their lives and histories and allows for the possibility of change"
		Ben Kenigsberg rogerebert.com	"To enjoy [it], it's necessary to accept that the movie is not meant to be read in a literal way (...) 'Frère et soeur' is absolutely bizarre, but it's also a return to form. No other director does crazy quite like Desplechin"
		David Katz The Film Stage	"Both characters undergo [an] existential torment, but Desplechin, as ever, shows how it can be part of a more complex system, the individual embroiled in the frightening vastness of life"
		Fabien Lemercier Cineuropa	"While the film sticks perfectly to its striking, unrelenting darkness, the signs of its aspiring to a way out, towards a lighter realm, are more artificial"

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