Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

morrison-dylan-fan Recently watching a superb double bill of François Truffaut works,I got in the mood to see a title from fellow French New Wave auteur Claude Chabrol. Finding her excellent in 8 Women and Love Crime,I was intrigued to find out that Ludivine Sagnier had cut a girl in two with Chabrol.View on the film:Becoming the man of Gabrielle's obsession, François Berléand gives a disappointing performance as Denis,which stands cold from Berléand offering neither swagger or passion to express how Denis becomes the centre of Gabrielle's attention. Playing on a romance where nothing is given in return, fit Ludivine Sagnier gives a very good performance as Gabrielle,with Sagnier trying to bring some passion between her and Berléand,along with swaying to catch the eyes of a rival would-be lover. "Unofficially" updating the ripped from the headlines Stanford White murder of 1906, the screenplay by co-writer/(with assistant director Cécile Maistre) director Claude Chabrol saws into the major theme across his work of the murderous self-absorbed state of the bourgeoisie, but misses cynical richness by stretching the run time to just under 2 hours,which leads to tension drying up,even when the girl is cut in two.

Ben Larson One would immediately recognize François Berléand as the witty cop in The Transporter and Transporter 3. He, of course, has been nominated a won awards for his acting in some fine films (My Little Business, Whatever You Say) that have pretty much gone unnoticed here in the colonies.Director Claude Chabrol, whom we lost late last year, puts Berléand squarely in the middle of a mystery, a mystery concerning who will win Gabrielle's heart. Played by the lovely Ludivine Sagnier (Swimming Pool, 8 Women). At the other end is his nemesis, Benoît Magimel (The Piano Teacher, La Haine).How Berléand can ignore his publisher Capucine, played by Mathilda May (The Cry of the Owl) is beyond me.Adultery leads to murder, but, as you might expect, money conquers all.Ecellent performances by all and a fascinating, if uneven film.

MartinHafer Gabrielle is young, gorgeous and on her way up in life. She is a TV weather lady but the network has plans for her to become an anchor. She also seems very confident, bright and articulate. Yet, at the same time, she's a complete idiot when it comes to men. She has two simultaneous affairs--one with a married author (Charles) and one with a super-possessive and scary heir to a huge family fortune (Paul). Neither is a great choice--the married guy is interesting and she loves him, but he'll never leave his wife. Paul, on the other hand, seems to have nothing to offer--other than, perhaps, money. He is so possessive that anyone with half a brain would run from him--and at first she does. But, when she realizes her married lover isn't ever going to commit, she marries the nut-case on the rebound. And you KNOW that all this will end in tragedy--partly because of the plot and partly because it's a Claude Chabrol movie and they almost always end with someone dying! So, until something horrid happens, you sit back and just wait....You know, it's interesting that this is actually a recreation of the famous very early 20th century American crime--when a very unstable millionaire (Harry Thaw) murdered architect Stanford White in front of MANY witnesses. It was prompted by Thaw's jealousy about his wife's affair with the much older White before she married Thaw. And, in an interesting twist, Thaw (so some extent) got away with it--spending a bit of time in a mental hospital and not prison or capital punishment. When I realized all this, it made the ending of "Girl Cut in Two" a foregone conclusion. In every major way, it's the same story set now in 21st century France. Even the way the killer's mother reacts to the wife is pretty much the same as well as the court case.So, the plot, though interesting, is certainly not original and is 100% predictable. Yet, despite the poor choice of recreating the original story almost exactly (a bit mistake--they should have rearranged the story much more), the film is good. The acting is excellent and the deliberate pace very nice. It looks good and is more enjoyable to those who don't know American history, nor have seen "Ragtime" or "The Girl on the Red Velvet Swing". It's interesting how few of the other reviewers realized this was based on the famous Thaw trial--and this does put an entirely different slant on the movie. And, it's also sad that this unoriginal plot was director Chabrol's last film--though his direction, to be fair, was very good.By the way, and this is NOT a criticism of Chabrol, but I am getting sick of seeing people refer to his films as 'Hitchcockian'. Part of this is because exactly what this is no one can really say. Also, it's not fair to Chabrol--can't a film be 'Chabrolian'?! Just me two cents.

chochobbly Dear oh dear, it's hard to believe someone with the pedigree and experience of Chabrol could bring himself to put his name to this awful film. The plot and characters all step straight out of bad film cliché-land; a woman torn between two lovers, one the older, wiser but cynical ....and oh my God...a writer too. The other, young, rich, aristocratic, gregarious but emotionally scarred, perhaps even slightly mad. The female characters don't come off much better; the eponymous girl bisected trundles around the set - and it very much has the feel of a film set, of a movie being made- with an insipid demeanour which may have made sense if she had subsequently shown some degree of erratic, explosive, contradictory behaviour. She doesn't. While the male characters are two-dimensional mannequins, at least a couple of the other female characters hint at having a life beyond the page we are watching them being draped across. But not much. Very lazy work, suggest you read a telephone directory instead, it will give you more insight into the human condition.