Le règne de la beauté

I found it visually gorgeous throughout, which ain't nothing. The characters could be better revealed and a lot is glossed over, both morally and practically speaking, but the actors were fine and the story was interesting. I'd never watch it again, but had to weigh in to provide some balance for all the haters.

Being a huge fan of ''Le Déclin de l'Empire Américain'' and of ''Les Invasions Barbares'' I was anticipating this film to be pretty awesome until I read reviews that were saying that even though the images are absolutely stunning, the movie was empty. Well I definitely agree about the images, but the film wasn't empty at all. It was a realistic look at the life of a beautiful, successful young adult. The characters are ''modern'' if I can use such a term. They admit to cheat on their partner without any guilt like it was normal and I feel a little social criticism on Arcand's part. It's like the film Nashville, there's not really a story, but some observations by the director. I don't compare this movie with Nashville, but I think you get the point. It's a beautifully shot realistic view into a young successful architect life

Love the work of Arcand and this effort is among his best. Visually stunning cinematography and strong acting throughout, in particular a strong performance turned in by Melanie Merkosky. Totally an enjoyable flic, two thumbs up as they used to say when critics mattered.

I intend to see this film again, to follow its action and dialog (with subtitles) more closely than I could at the cinema house, if and when it comes out on DVD. That DVD incarnation of this film is quite likely, given the fame and popularity of Denis Arcand's films; this one is still in the theaters here in Québec, director Denis Arcand's home province. The movie is essentially a pastoral, by turns urban, by turns rural pastoral, in the life of a promising young male architect. There are lots of sports that feature in the life that he and his woman, the latter a gym teacher, anyway, lead. She has a lesbian dalliance, and he takes up with a woman from Toronto (who later in the film comes to take a position in Quebec City).

Do not let all that yuppie quality and comfort of lifestyle deter you. Éric Bruneau is a stunningly handsome, slender but very appealingly and tautly muscled young man (with a nice face, too). Women and gay men will "flip" at his numerous scenes shirtless and buck-nakedly nude. It is worth seeing the film if only to gawk at this extraordinarily beautiful young actor; there even are moments, fleeting ones, admittedly, of full frontal nudity. The women are attractive, too. I hope eventually to have a better idea of what the various goings-on really add up to. (I am very fluent in French, having lived and worked in Québec for many years, but my hearing is beginning to deteriorate as I age, so subtitles help more and more. The magnificent Québec scenery, too, is gorgeous and very skillfully filmed.

The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions were the only two movies about a group of unlikable people talking and talking and talking that I enjoyed repeatedly and still once in a while I watch them again. I enjoyed other Arcand movies too; so I can state that is one of my preferred directors and found his subjects matters quite interesting and his approach original.

Well "La Regne de la Beaute" (which translates in "The reign of Beauty") is not the case. The whole movie on precious scenery after the other; beautiful people in each frame; perfectly dressed and even the music is beautiful; but what was the point of all that?.

The intellectual (but overall shallow) bourgeois French / Canadian society it is one of his preferred subjects; as it is the declining health care in Canada (or at least in Quebec); but none of these themes are quite developed here.

The infidelity of a young successful architect without considering his wife's slow descending into madness; could be an statement about a society that became so cold that family is no longer important (none of the characters has kids and nobody really seems to care about infidelities or jealously ) At the end is about a year in the life of a group of people with lots of personal issues resolved in an absolute cold manner.

I will perhaps seat through the movie again; but at first sight colder than all the snow in Quebec.