The Rules of the Game
The Rules of the Game
NR | 29 December 2022 (USA)
The Rules of the Game Trailers

A weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances.

Reviews
Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.
MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
elvircorhodzic Renoir was a master of satire. RULES OF THE GAME is a film that ridicules perhaps one social class with superb attention. High Society is always an interesting topic. The story is simple with an incredible number of complications. The topic at one point harmless, but in the second very dangerous. Of course, the director felt it on his own skin. The film is present and a dose of absurdity that in some scenes touching the point of madness and obsession. The picture is from the very beginning "blurred", just like the future of the characters. Anyone can ask what the surface is, and what depth of meaning? The area is regulated high society in which all polite, friendly and smiling. Probably too much. Depth is a farce in which they live wives, husbands, lovers, adulterers, servants, masters, informers and observers. In essence, everyone respects the rules of the game, they all misunderstood, unhappy and unfulfilled. All are persistent in the general chaos until it happens, let's say ... a murder. False sense of high society is a constant on the surface. Always!Given the period in which the film was created, anyone can conclude that Renoir consciously risked. Renoir 'attitude can be interpreted in several ways, but one thing is certain ... the director in his intention was damn honest. Death is in the film is described as a senseless, heartless and cruel.Nora Gregor as Christine de la Chesnaye tries to follow her heart, violating the rules of the game. Roland Toutain as André Jurieux, an aviator in love with Christine and victim of the game that is jeopardized by his behavior. Marcel Dalio as Robert de la Chesnaye, Christine's husband and Geneviève's lover is torn between his own passions and woman he loves. Jean Renoir as Octave, an old friend of Christine's and friend of André is a sign of reason everyone except himself, because he is aware that it does not belong to that class, but for many reasons does not want out there. Other characters are fit in the game even though they do not understand.The game gives and takes, recognizes and denies, opens and closes, laugh and sad.
st-shot Every bit the major player in film that his illustrious father Auguste was to Impressionism Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game may well be his finest work in a filmography (Boudu saved from Drowning, La Chienne, Grande Illusion, The Crimes of Monsieur Lange, La Bete Humaine) studded with classics. Made on the eve of Europe going dark for the war's duration it failed to catch on in it's initial release with the public or critics but eventually grew in reputation over the years where it consistently finishes near the top in annual critics polls as one of the finest films ever made. They'll get no argument from me.Aviator Andre Jurieux has just pulled off a remarkable and dangerous Trans Atlantic flight but rather than bask in the adulation chooses to lash out at no show Christine, a married aristocrat, who he claims inspired him to risk all for her. Even with the scandal flashed across the airwaves her gadget loving Marquis husband Robert (Marcel Dalio) is forgiving and for good reason since he has been carrying on an affair for some time with a family friend. Realizing what a fool he has made of himself Andre imposes on close friend Octave (Director Renoir) to get him an invite to the country estate of the Marquis and his wife to make up for his indecorous behavior and mingle with the upper crust at leisure for a week. The result is one tragic comic fiasco not only upstairs but also downstairs among the help who will inadvertently contribute mightily to the disaster. Rules of the Game is a magnificent parody of both dry wit and Feydeau farce. Renoirs jabs at present day upper class society and foibles are not slashing but subtle, his characters clueless and self absorbed but not cruelly malicious or overtly snobbish with both the Marquis and Christine confiding in a poacher and a maid respectively. It is this callous nature though that sets the stage for tragedy not just among the players but also as microcosm to events that will unfold within the year.Renoir mingles characters and relationships with casual precision moving the story along at a healthy pace with lengthy choreographed scenes involving a myriad of characters, all with healthy opinions and a touch of comic nuance to go along with it. He avoids overt caricature and humanizes the most egregious of his characters reserving judgment to make observations ("every man has his own reason") and in doing so holds up a mirror to a society on the verge of going over the edge with this remarkably perceptive testament of the times.
valadas I begin to say that if the killing of animals we see in the hunting sequences are real this movie must be utterly condemned for cruelty against animals and I would refuse to rate or comment it. Therefore the rating and review I am doing here is in the supposition that these killings are feigned. Thus beyond this I think this is a good movie that can be called precisely what its great French director Renoir called it: a cheerful drama. The story takes place on the eve of World War Two and shows a corrupt society living in strong moral decay despite the appearance of good manners and usages. In a aristocratic castle a hunting party is organized and we can see a lot of intertwined adulteries not only in the aristocrats' and bourgeois' society but also in the society of their servants. Renoir treats this with real mastery but in a somewhat light and not too deep way which though while done with his great talent masks the dramatic features a bit superficially. This movie was a commercial failure when it was released in 1939 and only much later and not long ago has it begun to be considered one of the greatest films ever made. But after its release it was even banned by the French government as "demoralising" and "unpatriotic". War was already in the offing then.
dlee2012 When one looks at this film, one immediately appreciates how much cinematographic technique had improved since the birth of the talkies some ten-twelve years previously. Renoir showcases a dazzling array of techniques that transforms this potentially "stagey" comedy of manners, with its limited number of characters and locations, into true cinema. Deep focus shots and panning reveals are all used to good effect here, giving the film an extraordinary dynamism.Social expectations are constantly subverted - the pilot who has completed the Atlantic crossing is not the macho hero one expects but a forlorn, jilted lover. Indeed, at the end he does not die an heroic death or win the girl but is killed due to a farcical case of mistaken identity. Likewise, the Jewish character is no outsider, but accepted as being at the heart of society.This subversion leads to the heart of the story which exposes the upper classes/nobility as a deeply corrupt and decadent group of individuals, and not the exemplary citizens that the lower classes need as role models. In fact, the opposite is true. The bad example being set by the upper classes is leading workers such as the gamekeeper and poacher astray as they seek to imitate their behaviour. Hence the poison is spreading through society from the top down.There is some effective use of motifs throughout. The scene of wanton slaughter during the hunt shows both the wastefulness and emptiness of the lives of the upper class, who amuse themselves only through love affairs and destructive behaviour. The scene also foreshadows the death of the aviator.Likewise, the notion of the cupid having wings meaning he is meant to fly also points to the aviator as being central to this story.Also, the scenes of theatre and plays-within-plays are, of course, a technique that have been used to great effect ever since Hamlet. Here, they once more reinforce the notion that the nobility are constantly wearing masks and playing at roles. They are so disassociated from "real life" that they cannot take anything seriously or possibly comprehended the seriousness of the consequences of their actions, even when confronted with them. Those observations are left to us, the audience, who sits outside the action.The ending is ambiguous: are the upper classes, with their euphemism and deceit really a dying race or is this one more lie? Perhaps the looming war seemed to foreshadow the destruction of their world but, if anything, western society is now as deceitful and corrupt as ever, if not with respect to the virtually-extinct old European nobility, then certainly in terms of the professional classes of politicians, academics and lawyers.Ultimately, this is Renoir at his most mature but it is not an easily-accessible film and one should be prepared to undertake repeated viewings. As with all of the director's work, pacing and rhythm are problematic and there are long lulls between bursts of drama.
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