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To me, this movie is perfection.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Wonder why this movie only has seven User Reviews? Here, I'll tell you . . . If this movie represents what 30-something has become - especially for women - I'm glad I'm both old and male. A too-perfect architect meets another too-perfect person (described in the movie info as "strange", for no discernible reason whatsoever) and dabbles in too-perfect sex for reasons that are never made clear, only to arrive back home to his clinging and equally beautiful, albeit too-competitive, blond wife who begs him never to leave her. He immediately expresses his undying love for her then sets up more trysts with the brunette beauty in Toronto, then later sees his blond wife kissing another . . . wait for it . . . WOMAN! Worse, he doesn't ask her about it until much later when she has some type of too-perfect anxiety breakdown.Then he goes to a too-perfect - female - doctor FRIEND because he thinks he might have contracted "something" in Toronto . . . and we ain't talking a common cold. When he gets nervous being examined she assures him that she sees at least a dozen penises every day . . . we are left to wonder if she means in her medical practice or socially. From this awkward - yet titillating (he admits to her) - experience, we have to see the totally unpleasant thing of an old guy - his work associate - being sick in the hospital, then dying . . . all totally ugly to too-perfect people.Somewhere the wife sleeps surrounded by his shotguns, which he refers to as "rifles" . . . proving that he should not be allowed near anything resembling a firearm, and neither should his too-perfect-anxiety-ridden-wife. The movie ends - sorta - after he gets called upon to design an abbey in Paris where he runs into the Toronto beauty, now slightly older and wearing glasses . . . he is also slightly older, but still too-perfect, and is with a pert young thing, leaving us to wonder if it is wife #2 or another fling as the movie ends with too-perfect-HGTV shots of houses he apparently designed . . . or maybe they were just boxes with windows . . . I fergit . . . I wuz getting sleepy.

I saw this a couple of hours ago and am thinking about it now. First, it left me wanting to visit Quebec City, especially during the winter. The city and its surrounding countryside looked beautiful. Some of the homes in the film, which after all is about architects, are stunning. But mainly it's the story about one ambitious young architect who actually says that love is not the be all and end all in life. He lives this philosophy in that he loves more than one woman at once and chooses not to be faithful.The ending of the film was sort of odd in that it just happened, without showing how, and we the viewers have to assume what happened. In that assumption is confirmation of the film's meaning, i.e., Luc had to pursue his lust/love of the moment, though that didn't mean that he no longer "loved" the previous ones. He just couldn't stay with them for he needs the new and novel. He is described as ambitious with regard to his architecture, and I'd say he is with his loves, too, in that he seems to keep trying for someone new and more beautiful.Though Luc is portrayed as gentle in his personality, and subtle, the truth is he's a selfish macho person who constantly plays sports - six different ones in the film - not including hunting, in which he shoots geese, and can't help but fall in love and get involved with beautiful women. And, he appears happy, despite some intimation of guilt; he gets over it pretty well. He is the true powerful, white male, enjoying the best that life has to offer.

Most critics have scorned at this movie for not being the usual politically, critically engaged Denys Arcand movie. Arcand started by exposing the many ills of a corrupt and dominant liberal (in the economic sense) society, used a lot of sarcasm in later movies to depict the ills of large state bureaucracies. This movie makes no exception as he stages architecture juries and again Quebec's health system. I do not agree with some of his reductionist statements, but I do love all of his movies for being pure art. "Le règne de la beauté" is by far his most achieved artistic statement, whereas he brings out the beauty of all the characters,making them so endearing, and of course showing the best sceneries across the four seasons in the province he truly loves.

Personally I liked all of Denys Arcand movie I saw, I've seen "L'age des Tenebres" four times at the cinema and then some more when I bought the DVD... I had some expectations when I heard this movie was coming out, and I must say I haven't been disappointed at all, even if I believe this is maybe not a movie for everybody... There's no real story who would make the film worthwhile by itself, I believe that to appreciate it the viewer must immerse himself in all the beauty depicted in the picture; beautiful actors inside and out, beautiful and picturesque countryside, beautiful music all along, beautiful buildings, beautiful sex scenes with beautiful naked womans... I think this movie fit right in Denys Arcand's style, I think if you liked his previous movies and are not too superficial in your expectations you won't be disappointed at all... It's kind of a poem, filmmaker Sofia Coppola tried to do something like that with her 2010 movie "Somewhere" about the relationship of a rock star and his young teenage daughter, but in my opinion she missed her shot in a gigantic way compared to this one... In her movie there were things like 5 minutes of strippers doing nothing but dancing at their pole, I understand we're supposed to immerse ourselves into the protagonist's world but there's a limit to feeding boredom to the viewer... Overall I didn't see the time fly watching this picture and I didn't come out of the screening room of the theatre, so I suppose it will be entertaining for at least some persons who appreciate beauty, like me...