Gervaise

Released Nov 11, 1957

1h 56m

Drama

List

80%

5 Reviews

Tomatometer

74%

100+ Ratings

Audience Score

Gervaise Macquart (Maria Schell) is a beautiful Parisian laundress and mother whose lover, Lantier (Armand Mestral) walks out on her. She eventually marries Henri Coupeau (François Perier), a roofer who has an unfortunate accident. As her now crippled husband descends into alcoholism, Gervaise tries to make ends meet on her own. Life becomes even more complicated when Lantier returns and befriends Henri. Meanwhile, the man she really loves, Goujet (Jacques Harden), is sent to prison.

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Audience Member

From Emile Zola's novel "L'Assommoir" which essentially means to be hammered (drunk). Rene Clement directs the realistic but tragic debasement of a working class woman at the hands of two men and the rejection by a third. The story clearly a show of how slender is the thread holding us back from catastrophe. Excellent B&W cinematography.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/01/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Émile Zola's story l'Assommoir makes a bleak film - I watched it without subtitles and my French isn't good enough to have understood everything that was said, but still found it a powerful story.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/23/23

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Audience Member

A perfect ending to a pretty perfect movie.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/20/23

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Audience Member

This film is filled with so much loathing and anger that when something even halfway decent happens you can't believe it, like Gervaise, and then before you know it, real shit goes down and your treading in bitches. Reject what makes you happy, drown in your weaknesses, and drink some booze. Now, it's not entirely bleak, hope springs from time to time, but hope is more of a sinister alien than anything else. Until the finale, where our dreams come true, and THE moment captures a million words.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/18/23

Full Review

walter m

Gervaise(Maria Schell) has two children, a bad leg, but no husband, living with Lantier(Armand Mestral), the father of her children. That changes when he leaves her which she finds out when her children show up at her workplace, a laundry, where some of her co-workers display less than sympathy. Defending her family's honor, Gervaise wins a ten round fight with Virginie(Suzy Delair) by TKO. Two years later, she is now married to Coupeau(Francois Perier), a roofer, and they have a daughter together. Even with that, Gervaise dreams of opening a shop of her own... "Gervaise" is a powerful and skillfully filmed movie, set amongst the working class of Paris in the 1860's(The Crimean War was in the past while Emperor Napoleon III is still in power) that attacks hypocrisy(notice the scene in the Louvre) concerning the role of women in society, advising them to to be patient in finding a husband, if they want one. This is a society where only the strong survive, and a single mistake could mean ruin, where Gervaise tries to take a different route by using her brains, even as she has been a mother since she was a teenager.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Adaptation, sans doute un peu tronquÃ©e, de "L'Assomoir" de Zola Film trÃ¨s moderne, car dÃ©nuÃ© d'effets de styles et de moralitÃ© typiques de son Ã©poque. Il prÃ©fÃ¨re s'attacher Ã la rÃ©alitÃ© des personnages, reconstitue avec vÃ©racitÃ© le Paris des faubourgs de 1850, et privilÃ©gie les scÃ¨nes naturalistes, ce qui en fait une vision sans doute trÃ¨s rÃ©aliste de la vie de nos ancÃªtres parisiens du XIXe siÃ¨cle.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/27/23

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René Clément

Director

Maria Schell

Gervaise Macquart Coupeau

François Perier

Henri Coupeau

Suzy Delair

Virginie Poisson

Armand Mestral

Auguste Lantier

Jacques Harden

Goujet

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Mark Le Fanu

Sight & Sound

Without ever making a big deal of it, Clment's film has a physical sparkle and a pervasive sensual undercurrent.

Jul 10, 2018

Full Review

Arlene Croce

Film Culture

As a film version of Zola’s L’Assommoir, Gervaise emerges as the finest rendering of a literary classic the cinema has given us since David Lean’s Dickens films.

Mar 30, 2022

Full Review

Stanley Kauffmann

The Reporter

The best compliment one can pay the new French film Gervaise is to say that it represents faithfully the Zola novel on which it is based.

Dec 16, 2021

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Grim period film of 19th century Paris that encompasses the human condition.

Rated: B

Feb 26, 2009

Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Maria Schell (sister of Maximillian) givs a touching performance in Rene Clement's screen version of Emile Zola's grim social-realist novel, which was nominated for an Oscar in 1956.

Rated: B+

Dec 29, 2008

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Synopsis

Gervaise Macquart (Maria Schell) is a beautiful Parisian laundress and mother whose lover, Lantier (Armand Mestral) walks out on her. She eventually marries Henri Coupeau (François Perier), a roofer who has an unfortunate accident. As her now crippled husband descends into alcoholism, Gervaise tries to make ends meet on her own. Life becomes even more complicated when Lantier returns and befriends Henri. Meanwhile, the man she really loves, Goujet (Jacques Harden), is sent to prison.

Director: René Clément
Screenwriter: Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost
Distributor: Continental Distributing Inc.
Genre: Drama
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 11, 1957, Original
Release Date (DVD): Sep 15, 2009
Runtime: 1h 56m