MartinHafer Brigitte Bardot plays a very competent and rich woman in this film. Yet, despite this, she manages to become putty in the hands of a rather self-absorbed and annoying man. While this seemed really unlikely, so is real life and there no doubt many people who fall for the absolute worst partner. It's annoying...but can happen. And, while the actors play annoying people, they do a good job with what they were given. The only problem is, does the average viewer want to see this sort of film?The film begins with Bardot having a very, very controlled and predictable life. She has a fiancé but there isn't a lot of passion between them. She is content with her lot...but not all that happy.When she travels to meet with lawyers concerning an inheritance that will make her quite rich, she stumbles accidentally into the life of a man who tried to kill himself with sleeping pills. How they met and how the hospital just gave him to her is all very, very difficult to believe--so you'd best suspend belief if you are to continue watching.Once the man is released from the hospital, he follows Bardot--almost like a stalker. But, oddly, instead of running away or telling him to get lost, she falls for this odd and completely amoral and self-absorbed man. Other than the attraction of having some unpredictability and passion in her hum-drum life, it's very, very hard to see why she becomes infatuated with her--especially when he runs hot and cold with her. Many times he does horrible things to try to drive her away...and yet, by the end of the film, you are expected to believe they'll somehow live happily ever after....which is about as likely as politicians balancing a budget!The plot has a lot of problems as you can see above, yet the film still manages to be interesting and quite sexy (despite not really showing anything). As usual, Bardot's character finds 1001 situations where she gets naked (but you see nothing, really) and the acting is good. It's just that the whole thing seems contrived and it's hard to actually like either character. An odd little time-passer.By the way, although Ms. Bardot has a famous reputation as an animal rights advocate, I did enjoy seeing her eating a big hunk of meat (this is not a reference to her male co-star but a real piece of cooked flesh) meat and being rather nasty to her pet goldfish.

roland-scialom This film had some charm by the time it was made. BB was in a great shape. The youth in occident were strongly influenced by a fashion based on a vulgar reading of existentialist philosophy. The first time I saw this film, during the sixties, I was 17 or 18, and a kind of a "rebel without a cause", fond of existentialist literature. So the film impressed me.Today, seeing the film again, I found it almost stupid. I explain.1. The revolt of Renaud is not explained in a context, so we don't know exactly why he is bitter, cynic, self destructive and iconoclast. 2. The author of the story tries to glamorize Renaud revolt, but, what I see can't be glamorized. For instance, Renaud wears the same unwashed clothes during several weeks (which seems to be the time the story lasts) doesn't take a bath and doens't shave his beard. He smokes all the time and drinks heavily since the time he wakes up. So, his clothes and his breath certainly stink disgustingly. He messes seriously Geneviève's apartment spreading all around dirty dishes and ash trays stuffed with smoked cigarettes. All this mess and dirtiness for nothing... or to punish unjustly Geneviève?3. Geneviève looks rather as stupid blonde female because she falls in love with a stinking revolted pseudo-existentialist who does't do anything useful to anyone and criticize hardly the middle class life style, middle class of which he is actually a parasite. The film deserves to be seen because of the presence of BB. She was marvelous by that time and a real icon of a generation. A queen of many dreamers as me.

bonfirexx This film seems like more than just a film, it looks and feels like what it would have really have been like to have Brigitte Bardot as your companion in life, for better and for a lot worse, as relationships go. Qualities such as loyalty, caring, warmth, tenderness, understanding, devotion, etc. endlessly flow from her to her suicidal, live-in lover, as time and again she brings him back from the depths of despair and self-destruction, to temporary recovery in her arms. All this, however, serves to make him even more miserable, in the best masochistic tradition, as he falls even more deeply into his alcoholic albatross, rather than face real life responsibility as a sober, productive man with a good woman by his side.Bardot exudes the utmost maturity and restraint in taking the best cheap shots this ungrateful con-artist, female user, and abusive man (Robert Hossein, in an outstanding interpretation of a difficult role) can dump on her. The problem here is universal in scope in that it portrays two people who are physically attracted to each other, to the point of addiction, while at the same time a classic mis-match from a values and a psychological perspective. "You always hurt the one you love," was never more in evidence than for the 102 emotion-draining minutes of this film. Clearly a Vadim masterpiece, and a triumphant collaboration with Bardot, long after their real-life divorce and her remarriage. This represents "professionalism" to the highest degree.

MARIO GAUCI While their short-lived marriage was long gone, this is the fourth of five Roger Vadim/Brigitte Bardot collaborations and only the second I've watched myself. After opening in a light comedy vein, this rather scrappy film turns into an unappetizingly ponderous melodrama on the lines of LA DOLCE VITA (1960), complete with a risibly "beat" orgy sequence and a surfeit of pretentious chat; nevertheless, the whole is somewhat redeemed by the attractive Italian locations in its second half and the nice musical score throughout.For what it's worth, it tells of a bourgeois girl (Bardot) – shortly to be married to an unassuming young man – travelling from Paris to Dijon to hear the will of her late aunt, who accidentally stumbles on the suicide attempt of a bohemian, pulp-thriller-loving misanthrope (Robert Hossein) who, upon recovering, literally turns her life upside down. The cast is completed by James Robertson Justice (as Hossein's sculptor friend), Macha Meril (as Robertson's tramp companion) and, in one sequence, Michel Serrault as a notary.In the end, the original title of THE WARRIOR'S REST sounds far more interesting that what's on offer here and the fact that I was misinformed about the film's running time – I thought it was a good 22 minutes shorter! – did not help to earn it much affection from my end. But, then, the sight of Bardot in her prime (and, Vadim being Vadim, in various stages of undress as well) is always welcome...