Synopsis
A weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances.
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Cast
- Jean RenoirOctave
- Marcel DalioRobert de la Cheyniest
- Nora GregorChristine de la Cheyniest
- Julien CaretteMarceau, le braconnier
- Roland ToutainAndré Jurieux
- Paulette DubostLisette, sa camériste
- Gaston ModotEdouard Schumacher, le garde-chasse
- Mila ParélyGeneviève de Marras
- Anne MayenJackie, nièce de Christine
- Eddy DebrayCorneille, le majordome
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
This magical and elusive work, which always seems to place second behind "Citizen Kane" in polls of great films, is so simple and so labyrinthine, so guileless and so angry, so innocent and so dangerous, that you can't simply watch it, you have to absorb it. - 100
Chicago Tribune
No other film has a final effect quite like "Rules." One walks away from it drained and exhilarated, after experiencing a whole world and seemingly every possible emotion in a few swift golden hours. - 100
Salon
Like the very greatest artists in all media -- here I go with the meaningless superlatives again -- Renoir was able to transcend his own perspective, his own prejudices, and glimpse something of the terror and wonder of human life, the pain of misapplied or rejected love, for rich as for poor. - 100
Washington Post
Rules would have been just another good movie if not for its masterly visual design. With it, however, the black-and-white film enters the realm of immortality. - 100
LarsenOnFilm
Still ahead of its time. - 100
Slant Magazine
Low comedy walks hand and hand with tragedy and beauty throughout; the film is frothy one minute, nearly apocalyptic the next, and so you’re never fully allowed to gather your bearings. - 100
TV Guide Magazine
One of cinema's most monumental achievements, Renoir's RULES OF THE GAME passionately tackles the pre-WWII French class system, and succeeds in bringing forth the complexities and frailties underlying bourgeois civility. - 90
The A.V. Club
Far from muting the satire, Renoir's hearty characterization complicates it and gives it life, which is rare among broadsides at the bourgeoisie.
