filmalamosa A young man (Benoît Magimel) attracts a fatal attraction (Laura Smet) at his sister's wedding. Smet plays a psychotic girl who Magimel thinks is only living in a semi fantasy world. But unfortunately it is more than that.I don't care for horror/psychopathic killer genres but if you do Claude Chabrol delivers again.Smet does a perfect job of portraying a mentally ill female--and the story leaves you in doubt so you have to watch it all the way through to see what happens. Also Benoît is handsome, after recent doses of Depardieu and Yves Montand--this is a relief.Good adult entertainment. Both the main characters are strong actors. Also as another reviewer stated Smet is uniquely beautiful as well as a good actress....as stated previously ditto Magimel. Short dark horror story.Recommend if you like the genre.

jotix100 Ruth Rendell's novel "The Bridesmaid" is the basis for this French film directed by Claude Chabrol. The director had a huge success adapting another Rendell's book, "A Judgment in Stone" that became the hit "La Ceremonie". Ms. Rendell stories always have a central flawed character, as is the case with Senta, a strange young woman.The story begins as Sophie and her sister Patricia are watching a news program on television, a sensational crime is in the headlines. Their single mother, Christine, works as a hairdresser from her modest, but comfortable home. Philippe, who is the other member of this family does not approve of the man his mother is seeing. To make matters worse, Christine's intentions of involve keeping Gerard Courtois, who clearly has no intention of marrying her.As the wedding approaches, a bridesmaid is needed to complete the party, the groom suggest a cousin, Stephanie, a strange young woman who has named herself Senta, after the heroine of the Wagner opera, The Flying Dutchman. At the party that follows the wedding, Senta meets Philippe, who finds her intriguing. Their relationship will have fatal consequences because of Senta's strange behavior and possessiveness.We had a vivid recollection of the novel, which we enjoyed tremendously. The adaptation of Mr. Chabrol and his collaborator Pierre Leccia, while following the story line of the novel turns out to be not as involving than the written page, although the director gets the essence of the book.Benoit Maginel, a young French actor had worked with Mr. Chabrol prior to this film, and went to star in 'La fille coupee en deux", does well as Philippe, the young man that falls hopelessly in love with a deranged woman. Laura Smet plays Senta, the woman who drives Philippe crazy. Aurore Clement appears as Christine, the mother. Michel Duchaussoy has a brief role as the vagrant that annoys Senta.Eduardo Serra, the cinematographer, keeps the dark atmosphere of the novel in check with the gray skies of Nantes and locations around Loire-Atlantique to great effect. The soundtrack is by the director's own son Matthieu. Even though this is not one of the best films by Mr. Chabrol, it must be viewed by all his fans.

eldino33 Sometimes the best way to understand a film is to listen to the director's own words. With "La demoiselle d'honneur," even that may not aid one's comprehension. For me, this film appears to be too loosely constructed to provide much more than very casually related scenes which appear to go nowhere. For example, director Clausd Charbrol, in a written interview in the special effects section of the DVD, says: " In my films the plot is not terribly significant. I try to get it out of the way in the first reel." One is left wondering why there is a wedding anyway? Why is there a bridesmaid? Why so much emphasis on the bride's mother doing hairdressing in her kitchen? Charbrol wants the audience to identify with Beniot, but identify with what? Charbol claims Phillipe's character is 80% sex and 20% passion. From this, the director expects the audience (in his words)to be "strong enough or crazy enough to reject their whole mental makeup." Phillipe drives a new car in the film apparently because the auto agency delivered it to the set by mistake, so his boss Nadeau lets him drive it for six months until his own driver's license is reinstated, but he admonishes Phillipe to "bring it back in one piece." The beach scene is an clearly stated as being an illusion to FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. There is also a clear illusion to PSYCHO. Of course, the absence of plot as the film progresses seems to allow the story to go out of control. Chabrol explains: "You have to ask funny questions at times." The only funny question I can think of is "Why would anyone want to see this film?" I find no merit for recommendation.

Mort-31 This movie did not particularly convince me. Maybe my expectations went in a completely wrong direction but nevertheless I discovered some flaws that really disturbed my pleasure of this basically interesting film.The plot line grows more and more absurd and - in its absurdity - predictable as the story goes on. This would not matter to me (as I do not really mind that we are never given an explanation for the strange and questionable features that strike us right from the beginning, especially in connection with Senta and the bust) if the characters were a little more subtly portrayed. All of the characters (Magimel's at the least) are exaggerated and near-hysterical, and therefore close to various type clichés (the rebelling teen daughter stealing, colouring her hair AND piercing her nose; the bridegroom, who is revealed as an idiot the instant we see him, calling his bride embarrassing terms of endearment; the mother smiling hopefully throughout as if she was on drugs). I am sure all this is not due to bad acting but done so intentionally. But I fail to understand what kind of quality it is supposed to add to the film. Humour? I don't know; I laughed occasionally but not very often.This is the kind of film that I am sure is fun making; but then it should not be shown publicly.