Cecile Maistre Movies

A television weatherwoman is pursued simultaneously by a spoiled pharmaceutical heir and a successful -- but much older -- writer in director Claude Chabrol's blackly comic tale of romance and class differences. Gabrielle Deneige (Ludivine Sagnier) has a high-profile job detailing the forecast on French TV. Yet despite Gabrielle's staunch work ethic, she values her privacy over her professional career and lives in a modest house with her aging mother (Marie Bunel). One day, renowned author Charles Saint-Denis (François Berléand) is interviewed at the television station where Gabrielle works, and the two feel an instant, powerful connection. Later, at a book signing, the pair continues to flirt despite the presence of entitled rich kid Paul Gaudens (Benoît Magimel) -- who openly despises the writer and longs to claim Gabrielle as his own. Despite the fact that Charles is still happily married to his wife of 25 years (Valeria Cavalli), with whom he has set up home in a posh ultra-modern estate in the countryside, he and Gabrielle share an intimate afternoon at the author's nearby pied-à-terre. Later, as the potentially psychotic Paul steps up his pursuit of Gabrielle, the girl begins to question whether either of her suitors is pure in his intentions. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Co-written by Caroline Eliacheff, Claude Chabrol's La Fleur Du Mal (The Flower of Evil) concerns three generations of the bourgeois Charpin-Vasseur family. The story opens in the present day with a murder occurring during a local election and son Francois (Benoit Magimel) returning home to Bordeaux after four years in the U.S. His father Gerard (Bernard Le Coq) is a suave and successful pharmaceutical manufacturer, while his stepmother Anne (Nathalie Baye) is in the process of running for local office.
Francois has long harbored a strong interest in Anne's daughter, psychology student Michele (Melanie Doutey), and - despite the fact that they are related in various ways - they begin a torrid affair. Then, right before election night, a letter appears, revealing negative information about the family's past concerning the elderly Aunt Line's (Suzanne Flon) connection to a crime dating back to WWII. La Fleur Du Mal was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Claude Chabrol directed this well-crafted thriller, which recalls the style and themes of his best-known work of the 1960s. Marie-Claire "Mika" Muller (Isabelle Huppert), who has inherited control of a large and successful Swiss chocolate company, remarries well-known musician André Polonski (Jacques Dutronc), to whom she was briefly wed 18 years ago. After their divorce, André married a woman named Lisabeth and they had a son, Guillaume (Rodolphe Pauly), whom André was left to raise alone after Lisabeth's death in an auto accident. One of André's favorite stories is how Guillaume was almost exchanged for another baby at the hospital shortly after he was born; one day André receives a visit from a young woman named Jeanne (Anna Mouglalis), who claims to be the other child. Jeanne and André soon find they have a remarkable amount in common, and that Jeanne bears a striking resemblance to the late Lisabeth. Jeanne is beginning to wonder if there's something no one has ever told her when Mika gives her a thermos of special hot chocolate as a nightcap, which she then spills all over Jeanne. Jeanne's boyfriend, Axel (Mathieu Simonet), facetiously suggests that the cocoa might be poisoned, and out of curiosity, he tests it, finding that it has indeed been laced with a sedative notorious for its use in cases of date rape. Merci Pour le Chocolat is based on a novel by American crime novelist Charlotte Armstrong. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The 50th film from legendary French New Wave writer and director Claude Chabrol is a typically Hitchcockian comic thriller about a pair of con artists. Up to now, the duo of Betty (Isabelle Huppert) and Victor (Michel Serrault) have contented themselves to small scams at hotel conventions, such as spiking the drink of a gambler, then rolling him for his winnings after he follows the flirtatious Betty back to his room and passes out. It then develops that, for the past year, without telling Victor, Betty has been plotting an enormous score involving Maurice (François Cluzet), the treasurer of an international corporation, who's planning to abscond with a briefcase containing five million Swiss francs in syndicate money. Betty's plan is for Victor to swap an identical briefcase with Maurice's and walk away with the jackpot, but Victor becomes suspicious of Betty's solo venture. Is his once-loyal partner betraying him? What about Maurice, who's no fool, and his gangster bosses, who will surely want their money returned? A dizzying array of potential double-crosses muddles the question of who's grifting who in the Betty-Victor-Maurice triangle. Rien Ne Va Plus (1997) screened at several film festivals under the English-language title The Swindle. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Who would have expected Brigitte to marry a prisoner with a long sentence in the first place? In this romantic action movie, that is only the first in a long line of surprising actions by the young woman. Somehow, she manages to get hooked to the young prisoner before realizing that he'll be locked up for another three or four decades. She decides that this is much too long to wait to spend time with her sweetheart and decides to learn how to fly a helicopter. Why? So she can fly in and take him out of his prison yard, which is exactly what she does, thrilling romantics all over France and seriously upsetting the authorities. This award-winning film (it's a 1991 Cannes jury-prize winner) is based on a true incident from 1986. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Noted French director Claude Chabrol helmed this oddity, a remake of German director Fritz Lang's 1922 classic Dr. Mabuse. The film features an all-star international cast as it tells the futuristic horror story of a bizarre epidemic which has swept West Berlin leaving a grim trail of grisly suicides. Meanwhile, the media broadcasts weird, highly suggestive propaganda. The authorities are appalled by all the bloodshed, but only one lone cop suspects that the "suicides" are really the work of a demented criminal mastermind. The film is also known as Dr. M. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide