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Just like Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell is a perfect inspiration to Claude Chabrol. Following Patricia Highsmith's example, Ruth Rendell minutely explores the troubled minds of unbalanced characters and the effects of their dangerous conduct on the people they mix with, the latter unaware of their mental imbalance. And what is director Chabrol pet theme? Just that!

This second child of a love match ( "La Demoiselle d'Honneur" is "La Cérémonie"'s younger sister ) is - unsurprisingly - as good as the first product of their encounter.

This time around, two hearts, two bodies are irrepressibly attracted to each other but will the sick mind of one contaminate the other's healthy brain? This is what the story is about and fascination slowly but surely finds its way to the viewer. Indeed Chabrol's talent mainly lies in his ability to make the story shift from the ordinary ( Philippe's family life, his job, the wedding ) to the uncanny ( Senta's odd ideas, the queer characters living in a bizarre house, Senta's sincere love tainted with unsettling ideas).

Benoît Magimel and Laura Smet embody the cursed couple to perfection.

In addition, there are excellent supporting performances, mainly from Aurore Clément ( the mother whose suffering is made apparent despite the character's efforts to hide it ), from young Anna Mihalcea ( striking as a young tortured rebel ) and from Michel Duchaussoy ( very amusing as good-natured tramp ).

All this fine movie lacks to be a genuine masterpiece is an extra dose of intensity. But , as it is, it's quite worth seeing.

Claude Chabrol still has it in him to craft a relationship drama with trust in the dark corners of the characters, and make it seem reasonably realistic. He's working from a novel by Ruth Rendell (and I can only guess how much more detail there is in there compared to here), but it feels like vintage Chabrol, with some updates for technological bits like cell phones, as he takes a romance to very peculiar, twisted lengths that somehow the audience buys completely because of the characters and the actors playing them. In The Bridemaid he opens on Philippe (Magimel), an accountant of some sort who has a kind but mixed-up family that's getting ready for Philippe's sister's wedding. As if in a slight update on Le Boucher, Chabrol has the set-up at the wedding for the two main players, as Philippe meets bridesmaid Senta (Laura Smet), and after the wedding she arrives at his house, drenched in rain, and they have a lustful encounter.

It's pretty close to immediately after this that Senta confesses her love for him, unquestionably, as if she knew it totally on first sight, and that now he is her's and so on. Upon this one might think, sarcastically, 'this can only end well', as love at first sight, save for a Disney movie, always leads to trouble. In this case Senta is adamant that Philippe, despite also confessing his love (however true or not is a curious part of the Bridesmaid I wasn't sure was a character flaw or a flaw in the story), "prove" his love for her. This includes two easy things and two out-of-the-question: plant a tree, write a poem, kill someone, and have sex with the same sex. Although Chabrol doesn't touch on that last one, the 'kill someone' part becomes the juicy angle to the story, as one is on edge if someone is really dead or how Philippe will play the next move, and how blinded by this obsession Senta has with Philippe.

And yet Senta's obsession isn't seen as something with hysterics or over-the-top acting. Far from it, and characteristic for a Chabrol film, Smet's performance is precisely subtle and kind and intelligent and all those things that reel Philippe in against all better judgment. It's an inspired turn by an actress (excuse me, 'actor') who I hope to see more of. Same goes for Magimel, who is the 'hero' of the story as the good guy who wants to be there for his mom and troubled younger sister, but also has this strange attraction to Senta that soon pits him in an untenable (or so he thinks) position. As far as that central storyline goes between Senta and Philippe, it's gold and cool and as good as anything Chabrol did in the late 60s and 70s, with sweet hints of the erotic thrown in from time to time.

The only downsides are, naturally, some disbelief with Philippe early on, or in the initial appearances of certain twists, and especially how we're meant to put some extra stock in Philippe's family troubles (mainly Patricia as a petty thief) that aren't well developed and works mostly to show how his family is as firm, warm counterpoint to Senta's clinging and desperate 'love'. But aside from this the fan of Chabrol whose been tracking his career for however long it's been going (since the late 50s early 60s with the other Cashier du cinema team) will hopefully be pleasantly surprised to know he's still got it in him to make compelling, dramatic cinema, with the usual Hitchcockian angles amped-up to a certain sinister, and ultimately tragic, glee. 8.5/10

Having read the book 'The Bridesmaid', I was gratified that this film was a very good representation of it. It kept close to the story and did not alter anything. Even though my image of Senta as she is portrayed in the book was different to that of the one in the film, it didn't matter as her personality was accurately portrayed - indeed, all the characters were excellent. Benoit Magimel was exactly how I imagined the main character, both in looks and behaviour.

The impact of the events would have been greater to those who haven't read the book (ie I knew what was going to happen) but I found it satisfying and would highly recommend this film.

Ruth Rendell's plots are so clever, with a twist in the tail, and it is important that a film captures this, and Chabrol manages it perfectly.

At his sister's wedding, a young man falls for a bridesmaid who harbors some weird ideas and may have a disturbing past. Chabrol is regarded as the French Hitchcock, and this film has some parallels with "Strangers on a Train," but it's not as taut and suspenseful as that classic. Chabrol here seems to be more interested in character development and relationships than in the plot. In fact, between a slow beginning and an unsatisfying ending, what little plot there is is rather predictable. However, it manages to be engaging despite these shortcomings. The pacing is leisurely but not boring. It has a good cast.

This is an interesting film in that the director Claude Chabrol had a lot of family working on the picture. These four Chabrols even had one writing the music for the film!

The story is an interesting psychological portrait of a sociopath. Philippe meets Senta at a wedding and offers to give her a lift...which she refuses. Amazingly, she soon shows up at his home and they have sex...knowing almost nothing about each other. Then, they go to her place and have sex once again. Okay...they're moving pretty fast...but what REALLY is unnerving is that she begins referring to him as 'the love of my life' and other such permanent sounding things and they barely know each other. Obviously, she has issues but Philippe is enjoying the sex and says nothing. However, as the film progresses it gets darker...much darker. Suddenly, out of the blue, she asks that he proves he lover her by killing someone. Well, she doesn't bother to wait to see what he says....she kills someone and is baffled when he isn't thrilled. What's next??

The film has no traditional style resolution. At the end of the picture, I saw two obviously different possibilities for what happens next...but you will never know. This is bound to annoy many, though I thought it wasn't that bad because the film was striving for realism as opposed to theatricality. Not a bad film...but it could have ended better for me.

I really like the books of Ruth Rendell, some under the pseudonym as Barbara Vine and she had published some 80 books. Claude Chabrol I also like and he had made something like 60 films, some of them wonderful. He made a couple of his of Rendell's, the first one was The Ceremony (1995) a great film made out of, A Judgement in Stone. Later on, this film was made in 2004, and from her's of the same title. The book is fine but unusually with Chabrol in this one I'm not sure he really gets it quite right here. It is a bit complicated and a rather odd tale and I think he wanted it to be amusing as well, but maybe it wasn't a good idea. It is interesting but with the stone head with bed, the candles and no people, and some dead but not dead, maybe it is just too much going on.

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.

This is a very good Chabrol movie. To me, probably his best since "Merci Pour Le Chocolat". The "atmosfear" was captivating, the script well written. The casting is great. The sets were mysterious (the old castle, for example). Well, to make a long story short, if you like Claude Chabrol's suspense movies, please, do yourself a favour and watch this one. Much better than the previous one, "La Demoiselle D'Honneur", was, I think, innovative enough to mark the mind of even his (Claude Chabrol's) long time fans in the deepest way. If he's physically getting old, as we all do, Chabrol's mind is still very sharp and a joy to explore. In a word, the French Hitchcock is back in top form ! May be the Ruth Rendall background of this movie gives it its best aspects. "La Demoiselle d'Honneur" is a kind of child-movie to an older Chabrol's masterpiece called "La Cérémonie".

About ten years before he decided to venture again in Ruth Rendell universe, Claude Chabrol had transferred to the screen "a Judgment in Stone" entitled "la Cérémonie" (1995). It was his last great masterwork although he somewhat betrayed the novel. The choice of Sandrine Bonnaire for the main role was ill-advised. Afterwards, his career followed a creative downswing with rather mediocre works such as "au Coeur Du Mensonge" (1999) or "Merci pour Le Chocolat" (2000). So, could a new excursion in Ruth Rendell territory boost his career again?

Alas no and the title of my summary should give you an inkling about my thoughts on the Chabrol 2004 vintage. However, there were some good elements to make the film compelling and to grab the attention. The first sequence showcases Benoît Magimel and his family in front of the TV news that reveals a murder. Perfect to weave an eerie climate. The big, imposing, eerie house in which Laura Smet lives seems to shelter dark secrets and the "bridesmaid" lives in the basement. Chabrol was also interested in the games of truth and lie that link his two main actors and real suspense lies in Magimel's personality dangerously attracted to the bridesmaid. The filmmaker's touch is also discernible at the wedding ceremony where he ridicules its crucial steps. See the church sequence and the feast which echoes to the one in "Le Boucher" (1970). While I'm evoking this meal, the gastronomy dear to Chabrol has three sequences devoted to it in the whole film. But let's come back to the bulk of the plot. Like "a Judgement in Stone", "La Demoiselle d'Honneur" was an exciting novel to read and again Chabrol skipped over some important points, notably the reasons which prompt the hero to steal the bust from Gérard Courtois (Bernard Le Coq). In the novel, he stole it because he thought that Courtois was a vulgar man, but here Magimel's motivations to steal the bust remain blurred.

The thrust of the novel and so of the film is a man who gradually loses the control of his everyday life facing a sensual, attractive disturbing young woman. However, things aren't looking good because there's an absence of unnerving climate and the scenario seems to have been sedately written, especially near the end. In another extent, I know what I'm going to write is questionable but I do think that Chabrol contemporary films suffer from the choice of the actors (see bland Jacques Dutronc in "Merci pour Le Chocolat" or Jacques Gamblin in "au Coeur Du Mensonge") and sadly "la Demoisele d'Honneur" isn't an exception to the rule. Magimel's character isn't credible at all. He should get bogged down in madness as he's deeply in love with Smet but it isn't discernible on the screen. Laura Smet (Johnny Hallyday's daughter) has a monotonous acting while Bernard Le Coq's part is underwritten. Michel Duchaussoy who was brilliant in "Que la Bête Meure" (1969) is relegated to a minor tramp role unworthy of his wide acting skills.

So, an absence of interest for this story of manipulation is surely due to its actors and also because like for "la Cérémonie", Chabrol made dull Rendell's novel. Mr Chabrol, let's put it this way: the best of your work is far behind you in time (roughly the dusk of the sixties and the dawn of the seventies) and you will probably never reach this scale again. How about contemplating retirement?

I have not read Ruth Rendell's novel, so I cannot judge this film as an adaption of a fictional work. On the other hand, I think the film fails primarily because Rendell's story doesn't work well in a French setting. If I'm reading the film correctly, I think that Rendell wanted to get at class distinctions as a central topos of the novel, and this theme would play out superbly in an English setting, where class differences are part and parcel of the social fabric. In Chabrol's film, such distinctions are so understated as to be lackluster, if not plain dull, a thematic failure that is only made the worse by characters who are lifeless and lacking in the telling character traits and hard-scrabble wisdom one expects of certain class types. Everyone in Chabrol's film is bourgeois, bourgeois, bourgeois, and therefore just plain boring. The acting is not so great and I felt that the casting decisions were flawed. Finally, Senta is a ridiculously deranged young woman (wouldn't you, too, hear the stylus skipping across the LP if someone said they loved you and that you were the person for whom they had been waiting forever, after one afternoon of sex?), so it's difficult to imagine anyone taking her very seriously. Let's not forget the absurdity of Senta's mother and the mother's lover, played by untrained dancers (it's very obvious) who spend their waking hours practicing the tango in awkward and clumsy moves. Why didn't Chabrol do something else with them other than film the pair practicing steps they can never hope to master? I would not recommend this film.

In Lille, the hairdresser Christine (Aurore Clément) has raised her son and two daughters alone. Philippe Tardieu (Benoît Magimel), who works in a renovation company; Sophie Tardieu (Solène Bouton), who is going to marry Jacky (Eric Seigne) in a couple of days; and Patricia Tardieu (Anna Mihalcea),who seems to be using drugs, live with their mother in a middle-class house where Christine works. Now, while a teenager is vanished in the city, Christine invites her son and daughters to meet her boyfriend, the wealthy Gérard Courtois (Bernard Le Coq) that has just divorced and is selling his house. She gives her garden stone head of the goddess of flowers Flora that Philippe adores to Gérard that tells her that he has a business travel to Italy on the next day, but he disappears from Christine's life. In Sophie's wedding, Philippe meets her sexy bridesmaid and Jacky's cousin Stéphanie "Senta" Bellange (Laura Smet) and they have one night stand. Despite the odd behavior of the unstable and apparently imaginative Senta, Philippe immediately falls in love with her and she suggests four weird things to prove their love: planting a tree; writing a poem; having homosexual intercourse; and killing a person. When a homeless beggar is found murdered in the harbor, Philippe decides to fantasize that he had murdered the man to prove his love to Senta. On the next morning, when he wakes-up, Senta tells that she had murdered Gérard to please Philippe and describes her crime in details. Philippe decides to visit Gérard to find the truth about Senta.

"La Demoiselle d'Honneur" is an engaging thriller by Claude Chabrol that slightly recalls Alfred Hitchcock style in "Strangers on a Train". The story has many subplots to divert the viewer and the twists are excellent. This is the first movie that I have seen with the sexy and gorgeous Laura Smet and I loved her performance, in a totally different type of psychopath. Like in other films of this director, the ending is open to interpretation and I believe that Philippe has indeed called the police, but will try to help Senta during her imprisonment. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Dama de Honra" ("The Bridesmaid")

Note: On 14 January 2025, I saw this film again.

If the director wasn't Claude Chabrol, I'm not sure this picture would have been released. It's a mystery story with a rather common theme. Ordinary man meets strange girl with secrets and his values tend to change in dangerous ways, because of the passion.

But the acting alienates the viewer. The dialog and the facial expressions don't mix together and you can't take the theme seriously. That's a problem in many French movies and not at least those of Chabrol. Maybe it's because one is too used to American actor manners, but I'm not sure that's really the problem here.

Passions can be boring and this is unfortunately an example.

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.

Usually Chabrol takes a while before his thrillers become "thrilling." But in "The Bridesmaid," the tension starts pretty early on. Even before the title character shows her cards, her personality alone makes the movie riveting.

The plot of the movie is somewhat unrealistic, but the actors really manage to make it believable. The characters played by Laura Smet, Benoit Magimel, and Aurore Clement all have weird quirks (to say the least) that could have easily fallen flat, but it's to their credit that they all managed to make these odd characters sympathetic and believable.

Most reviews name this movie a "lesser" Chabrol, and he's made so many movies that it would have been easy to overlook.

I'm glad it was one of his only streaming movies on Netflix, otherwise I probably wouldn't have discovered it. It will only be streaming for a few more days, so catch it while you can!

It's not clear to me why the vast majority of the users of this web site give this film such a high rating. There wasn't much I could find of substance: The plot is somewhat thin, and not developed as it could have been. Senta presents four conditions for totally committed love, including two that would be rejected by most people. However, the protagonist only deals with one of these. It would have been far more interesting if he had dealt with both. At least there would be some progression of the plot, which eventually could reach its conclusion or unravel (I'm avoiding spoilers here). The character of Senta is not believable, in the sense of being an irresistible force. Her speech is too clipped and with little intonation. Perhaps this is the way of modern French speech. Further, there is little in the way of body language or eye movement to reflect the irresistible force. Or perhaps the protagonist is simply too messed up and seeks solace in whichever live female (not statue) that crosses his path.