L'Ivresse du pouvoir (Comedy of Power) (2006)

Critic Reviews

• Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

  It is long past time to recognize Claude Chabrol and Isabelle Huppert as one of the cinema's great actress-director collaborations.

• Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times

  A witty, timely drama.

• Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

  It's not often that you see the craft of cinema so perfectly executed -- or a group of fancy scoundrels so ruthlessly caught and skewered. Comedy of Power, like all of [Cluade] Chabrol's Hitchcockian films, is dark, smart and delicious.

• Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

  This movie can't commit to a genre, let alone a logical sequence or complete idea. But there is a wisdom in its blasé assessments and frivolous air: What's the point; where's the wine?

• Andrew Sarris, New York Observer

  One cannot imagine a similarly sophisticated fictional treatment of the Enron case from the point of view of both the accusers and the accused; in Hollywood movies, there is only right and wrong. Chabrol's Comedy of Power is much wiser than that.

• Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

  Chabrol has fashioned a mystery that caves in on itself, but unfortunately, it caves in on the audience, too.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  Despite the title, there's no laugh-out-loud comedy in this mostly serious thriller.

• Robert Hanks, Independent

  Very little happens, and it has the look of a TV movie; yet the pace never seems to let up, the screen never seems empty, and its grip on your attention doesn't falter.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  The script is dapper and the story slick. But it is Huppert who gives it heft, style and star power.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  Chabrol is intriguing and relevant, but the power and the comedy are dissipated.

• Anna Smith, BBC

  A Comedy Of Power fails to dig deep into this idea, or into the life of its protagonist. It's largely left to the charismatic Huppert to make this sly but oddly slight drama a decent watch.

• Dave Calhoun, Time Out

  No laughs - but still plenty to like in this diverting and insightful thriller that plays out in the higher echelons of the French judiciary and Parisian world of high business.

• Anton Bitel, Film4

  With Isabelle Huppert holding court and irresistibly dominating the proceedings, this is never really about the crimes she investigates - but it probably should have been, as the film, for all the quality of its performances, is a trial for the viewer.

• Louis Proyect, rec.arts.movies.reviews

  Chabrol film based on true life incident, the investigation of crooked executives at Elf Aquitaine, the French version of Enron. Isabelle Huppert is terrific starring as chief magistrate.

• Sean Axmaker, MSN.com

  Chabrol observes the power games and intimidations with a matter-of-fact directness...

• Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

  Chabrol manages a brisk, light tone, even though the movie is mostly talk, and Huppert turns in a powerhouse performance.

• Josh Larsen, Sun Publications (Chicago, IL)

  ...explores how power is never really diminished - it just changes hands.

• Maria Garcia, Film Journal International

  Although Chabrol is celebrated as a master of suspense, his great movies, like this one and the underappreciated masterpiece Madame Bovary (also starring Huppert), meticulously expose the mechanisms of our entrapment.

Read all 18 critic reviews