Synopsis
In the midst of rehearsals for a new play, amateur dramatics proponents Colin and Kathryn receive the shattering news that their friend George is fatally ill and only has a few months to live.
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Cast
- Sabine AzémaKathryn
- Hippolyte GirardotColin
- Caroline SilholTamara
- Michel VuillermozJack
- Sandrine KiberlainMonica
- André DussollierSimeon
Recommendations
- 100
RogerEbert.com
Everything in Life of Riley, Resnais makes plain, is a contrivance. Much of the joy and beauty of the movie comes from letting the levels of contrivance fall into place, as with some Rube Goldberg contraption, creating a parallel abstract narrative to the more conventional semi-farcical one unfolding on screen. - 88
Slant Magazine
Alain Resnais's overpoweringly beautiful final film dares to push through the ghosts that inhabit the present, standing between the pessimism of an ill-spent past and the optimism of an undefined future. - 80
Village Voice
Resnais's lightheartedness is infectious as he dispenses with the cinematic "reality" he never quite trusted, shooting the six-person farce on obvious sets, with curtains for doors and flat theatrical lighting. - 80
Empire
A final opportunity to see a master at work in this mischievously melancholic delight. - 63
New York Post
Filmed on abstract sets, it’s full of playful touches, such as lines delivered in front of a screen that looks like a comic-strip panel, and glimpses of a mole puppet popping out from a fake lawn. - 60
Time Out
Shot when the director was 91 and finished just before he died in March, Alain Resnais’s third adaptation of an Alan Ayckbourn play is his gentlest attempt at using the artifice of theater to affirm the reality of imagination. - 60
The New York Times
Life of Riley is neither especially profound nor riotously funny. An element of caricature is palpable in the performances but restrained. - 60
CineVue
A postmodern experiment in both form and function, Life of Riley's rigidity can at times feel like its restricting its actors, leaving them unable to treads the boards with the same authority they would on the stage.
