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Pretty Good

As Good As It Gets

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The acting in this movie is really good.

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!

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.

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.

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.