Synopsis
Set in Belle Époque France, the story follows nineteen-year-old "hysteria" patient Augustine, the star of Professor Charcot's experiments in hypnosis, as she transitions from object of study to object of desire.
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Cast
- SoKoAugustine
- Vincent LindonCharcot
- Chiara MastroianniConstance
- Roxane DuranRosalie
- Olivier RabourdinBourneville
- Grégoire ColinVerdan
- Sophie CattaniBlanche
- Lise LamétrieL'infirmière principale de la Salpêtrière
- Ange RuzéPierre
- Stéphan WojtowiczConti
Recommendations
- 100
The New York Times
Everything depends on the subtlety of the direction and the charisma of the performances. Augustine is intellectually satisfying partly because it communicates its ideas at the level of feeling, through the uncanny power of Soko’s face and body. - 88
Slant Magazine
Alice Winocour's take on this true story carries the superficial trappings of a period drama, but its perspective is entirely contemporary. - 80
Variety
Anchored by two intense, intertwined perfs by veteran Vincent Lindon and relative newcomer Soko, a musician who also composed the pic’s growling, atmospheric score, this period drama offers a coolly febrile study of madness, Victorian sexual politics and power. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
Augustine's script is a coherent and valid artistic reinterpretation of the case, told against an unfussily atmospheric evocation of late 19-century Paris - persuasive even though the dialogue seldom sounds particularly old-fashioned. - 80
Time Out
Plays like a gothic prequel to David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," one in which human flesh is viewed as both horrific and erotic terrain. - 80
Village Voice
The film is something of a paradox, simultaneously passionate and dispassionate, its ending tethered to both bruised triumph and a sense of things falling apart. - 80
Wall Street Journal
Soko is terrific, but it is Mr. Lindon who delivers the performance of the film, his internalized consternation amounting to an eloquent dispatch from the war between the sexes. - 80
Los Angeles Times
The film's dark beauty and the quiet intensity of the performances have a discomforting pull.
