Popular reviews

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  Review by Christina ★★★★½ 3

  “what is this strange sensation misery has on you?”

  a huge “men are trash” type of story, directed by a great example of that description, roman polanski.

  polanski’s film adaption of tess, orchestrates the suffering that men inflict on women. on the surface, it is barry lyndon’s ruthful and feminine counterpart. tess, angelically portrayed by nastassja kinski, is buffeted on by the double standards of victorian society. unlike redmond barry, she does not dominate her world in a flamboyant manner, she silently slips by. 

  labeling this as a portrait of empowerment would be a travesty, the camera sympathizes with our tragic heroine’s fragility. young tess, at the mercy of life, heart and pride—never falls into the right hands and remains too…

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  Review by Jaime Rebanal 🇵🇸 ★★★★★ 7

  Something that has always gotten me strange looks from groups of friends is a statement I make in regards to Roman Polanski's Tess, a beautifully understated piece of work from a filmmaker whose style has always drawn me in, even at some of his weaker points. Whereas it is not the same style that we may already know Polanski to follow within his body of work, the very reason I find that it stands out among all his others is how much heart it has for anything directed by him, as it is indeed a project that meant so much to him personally. If that were not enough, you can already point at the fact that Nastassja Kinski is indeed…

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  Review by Lou (rhymes with wow!) ★★★★ 21

  You've been dealt such a bad hand in life, Tess. Pathetic men be pathetic, no matter what era. You deserved so much better though. ❤️

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  Review by Graham Williamson ★★★★½ 15

  It was around the point when Nastassja Kinski reclined on the ancient polystyrene rocks of Stonehenge that I thought, "This should be a mess, surely?" An adaptation of an English novel set in a fictional county shot in France, directed by a Pole and starring a German, Tess has all the ingredients of an incoherent, flavourless Europudding. What emerges is one of Roman Polanski's most serious, deeply felt works, and a truly powerful, faithful rendition of Thomas Hardy's novel and ideas.

  Polanski goes for a retro-epic flavour right from the very start, opening with the full credits in the style of a 1940s movie. This isn't just an affectation, though. Polanski puts them there so the viewer can't walk out…

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  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★½ 2

  "Why am I on the wrong side of this door?"

  Very beautiful.

  That is it. Sometimes the most simple and overused words will do the trick, and that description suits this film just fine.

  A swaying drama with stunning subtlety and visual delights. Kinski blossoms as a white rose with thorns within a context of patriarchies, tradition, chauvinism and social strata discrimination, where the name of a family entails a heavy social weight. Tess has no real guidance beyond that of her desolate mother, and in a home devoid of a proper paternal figure, succumbs impulsively to her need of being loved and discovering malice in her journey. Males are not maligned in a generalized way, but the idea of…

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  Review by Jizzmonkey ★★★★★

  Roman "lock up your underage daughters" Polanski shows his class recreating the countryside of pre-pre-Brexit England and populating it with a cad, an idiot, and the ravishing Nastassja Kinski, hopefully of age and capable of defending herself against the director's many suggestions to "work on the script some more tonight in my kombi van". Beautifully shot, with a couple stockings over the lens for good measure.

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  Review by Caitlin ★★ 4

  holy fuck......... I literally hate all men

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★

  "Beauty has a price."

  if Hardy's "pure woman faithfully presented" was often an avatar for the harmony of nature, undone by creeping modernization and bourgeois moralizing, then Polanski's is more intrinsically virtuous, perfect innocence despoiled by men who must possess or destroy it. whatever her purity represented, a fat lot of good it did her.

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  Review by Tentin Quarantino ☭ ★★★★½ 8

  Jesus Christ, the cinematography...

  We have the technology to make every movie look this good, literally, and instead most films look like a backed up sewer at 4am in Detroit. Ask yourself why that is, and then ask why so many people - perhaps yourself included - settle for that.

  This is definitely a forgotten masterpiece.

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  Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★

  Criterion Collection Spine #697

  A great reminder to NEVER EVER play the dirty little secrets game with your spouse!

  "Go on, hit me! I shall not cry out. Once victim, always victim. That's the law."

  Much like my desire to watch as many classic movies as possible, I have also felt the urge at times during my life to read some of the great works of literature including Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles', which was a title that always sounded so intriguing to me. But the truth is that it takes me forever to read a novel, plus I am constantly on the go. So if I do take in a book, it will likely be on…

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  Review by corey👻 ★★★★

  tess deserves the entire world, i would sacrifice everything for her

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  Review by Will Sloan ★★★★½

  Fun fact: the third result on a Google search for this movie is an article for a website called Decided titled "Roman Polanski’s ‘Tess’: The Most Problematic Movie Ever Made?"