Four very different Montreal university teachers gather at a rambling country house to prepare a dinner. Remy (married), Claude (a homosexual), Pierre (involved with a girlfriend) and Alain (a bachelor) discuss sex, the female body and their affairs with them. Meanwhile, their four female guests, Louise (Remy's wife of 15 years), Dominique (a spinster), Diane (a divorcée) and Danielle (Pierre's girlfriend) are spending the time at a downtown health gym. They also discuss sex, the female body and, naturally, men. Later in the evening, they finally meet at the country house and have dinner. A ninth guest, named Mario, who used to know Diane, drops in on the group for some talk and has a surprise of his own.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.6/10
IMDb: 7.1/10
Letterboxd: 3.49/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 86%
Metacritic: 60
TMDB: 6.7/10
Director
Denys Arcand
Production
Corporation Image M & M, Societe Radio Cinema, ONF | NFB, Malofilm, La Societe Generale du Cinema du Quebec, Téléfilm Canada
Cast
Dominique Michel, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal, Pierre Curzi, Rémy Girard, Yves Jacques, Geneviève Rioux, Daniel Brière, Gabriel Arcand, Évelyn Regimbald, Lisette Guertin, Alexandre Remy, Ariane Frédérique, Jean-Paul Bongo, Jean-Michel Dufaux
Where to watch
OVID
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, talk-heavy chamber comedy-drama that uses sex, friendship, and self-deception to expose the vanity of a certain intellectual class. It can feel repetitive, but the writing, ensemble interplay, and underlying social bite make it a rewarding watch for viewers who like conversation-driven films with bite.
Best for
fans of dialogue-driven ensemble dramas
viewers interested in relationship satire
people who enjoy adult, cynical comedy
audiences drawn to Quebec cinema and cultural commentary
fans of films about intellectuals behaving badly
Skip if
you need a plot-heavy movie
you dislike long conversations and minimal action
you want sympathetic characters
you prefer broad comedy or fast pacing
Overview
Denys Arcand turns a dinner-party premise into a sly autopsy of middle-class desire, ego, and ideological posturing. The film’s pleasure comes less from plot than from watching a group of educated adults reveal how little their sophistication protects them from vanity, lust, and self-justification.
Worth noting
It is very much a conversation film, and that means the rhythm can drag if you are not in the mood for arguments, confessions, and sexual theorizing. But the writing is nimble, the ensemble is carefully observed, and the movie keeps finding new ways to puncture its characters without reducing them to caricature.
Bottom line
What lingers is its mix of comedy and discomfort: it is funny, but rarely warm; intelligent, but never smug for long. If you like your social satire with a strong sense of place and a little acid in the aftertaste, this is an easy recommendation.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Ethan Colburn (3.5★) · 103 likes
French-Canadians are horny apparently...
This movie about Quebecois talking about sex really came together in the end. I was getting a bit bored of it in the middle when the group of men and the group of women were just talking about their sexual experiences, but when they came together, things got interesting.
Its thesis about the American Empire being in its final days seemed to be something they could have flushed out more. Other than the one speech, I… more
russman (2.5★) · 70 likes
Real mature, poster artist. Real mature.
Paul Elliott (3★) · 49 likes
A generally captivating film from Canada which conveys itself thoroughly through the philosophical talk of its characters. Written by Denys Arcand at the beginning of the nineteen-eighties after the initial public vote on whether Quebec should follow a route towards independence from the rest of Canada, it shadows scholarly yet narcissistic and self-interested attendants from the University of Montreal as they become involved in prolonged conversations regarding concerns of sexuality and their physical relationships.
It's a dialogue-heavy film with a… more
Olivier Lemay (2★) · 43 likes
Beurk.
I was just waiting for this to end with all of these awful people to be confronted for being such dicks and yet the film ends with embraces and a pleasant brunch set to peaceful piano music. How are we supposed to sympathize with any of these characters today? Even worse. How were people okay with this in 1986?
Normalized cheating culture. Having the only gay character with more than one line say that nothing’s hotter than a 12… more
Maria (1★) · 30 likes
Intellectuals yammering about how progressive they are for 1 hour and 40 minutes, while actually proving how misogynistic, racist, and homophobic they are.
It’s a misguided social commentary at best. Had the intellectuals' anti-thesis not been portrayed as the only sympathetic character, perhaps it could have been a meaningful commentary on western values and the hypocrisy of liberals. But since the solution the film offers is a primitive, sadistic, and offensive character (Mario), its commentary doesn't amount to much.
However,… more