Phonearl
Good start, but then it gets ruined
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Bob
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Phillipa
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
writers_reign
Danielle Thompson, one of the most consistent high quality screenwriters in late twentieth century French cinema, still had another fourteen years until she turned hyphenate (writer-director) when she wrote this charmer in 1975. Unmistakenly Gallic - other countries have attempted the basic premise succeeding only in snatching suet puddings from the jaws of souffles - it's lighter-than-air treatment of a heavy subject is note perfect not only in the two central performances but also in the wry portraits of their extended families beginning with their respective spouses and children and working outwards. Watching it for the first time some thirty-seven years after it hit the salles I was totally captivated by it's charm, dispensed via an eye-dropper and its overall enchantment.
pontifikator
"Cousin Cousine" is a French comedy from 1975, directed by Jean-Charles Tacchella, who co- wrote the screenplay. We start at a post-wedding dinner which nailed post-wedding dinners: adults drunk, kids bored to tears, too much said for comfort. The plot is that Marthe (Marie-Christine Barrault) and Ludovic (Victor Lanoux) become friends, platonic at first, but we watch the relationship blossom into love, then reach fruition.The twist is that they are married. Marthe is married to Pascal (Guy Marchand) and Ludovic to Karine (Marie-France Pisier). Marthe and Ludovic meet at the wedding because Pascal and Karine are off having sex, and Marthe and Ludovic are having to wait for the couple to return. Marthe and Ludovic are distant cousins (he's cousin, she's cousine), but then everybody at the wedding is more or less related.It's a quiet, subtle comedy where not much ever happens. We just get to watch the blossoming of new love. The families, of course, know all (or imagine even more) that's going on between them, and Karine and Pascal are somewhat indignant at the goings on between the Marthe and Ludovic. But there's a whole movie in those other family members, so we get to spend some quality time with the aunts, uncles, and other cousins as we follow our lovers to other weddings and a funeral.
preppy-3
A French comedy about adultery. Two distant cousins meet at a wedding--Ludovic (Victor Lanoux) and Marthe (Marie-Christine Barrault). They're both married with children. They hit it off and become good friends. Their respective spouses think they're sleeping together. They're not but they decide why not try it?HUGE SPOILER!!! A BIG hit in the US (and even nominated for Best Foreign Film) this is a light-weight, fluffy and totally unremarkable film. It's flatly directed and the story wanders all over the place. It also presents adultery as being no big deal (!!!) At the beginning when Marthe's husband Pascal is breaking up with the multiple women he's been sleeping with it's presented as cute, charming and even funny! This was obviously long before AIDS but I still find that attitude pretty disgusting. Adultrey is not funny and cute and shouldn't be presented that way. Seriously, how about the kids in the respective families? Their feelings or thoughts are never bought up. To make it worse it ends with Marthe and Ludovic run away with each other and THIS is presented as a good thing!!!! The morals (or lack of them) in this film is bewildering. It gets a 4 only because the whole cast is good, it IS pleasant (if morally bankrupt) and Barrault and Lanoux play off each other well. There's also some minor female nudity. I can't recommend this at all but a lot of people liked it back in the 1970s. Use your own judgment.
Michael Neumann
Two adult cousins go well beyond the kissing stage in this lighthearted French comedy, a popular choice for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, thanks in large part to its casually forthright attitude toward the joys of physical affection. The two lovers, each already married, are blithely unconcerned with the opinions of others, taking an altogether healthy pleasure in scandalizing their extended (bourgeois) family by retiring to the bedroom for hours on end during holiday reunions, and so forth. A surplus of natural charm, combined with a refreshing (and typically French) lack of romantic melodrama, make it an easy film to enjoy, and an unsurprising candidate for the inevitable glossy Hollywood remake, fourteen years later.