Pauline at the Beach

R

Released Mar 23, 1983

1h 31m

Comedy

List

94%

16 Reviews

Tomatometer

84%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Fifteen-year-old Pauline (Amanda Langlet) journeys to the Normandy coast for a summer vacation with her adult cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasle). Marion is waiting out her divorce and, along the shore, runs into her old flame Pierre (Pascal Greggory). Although he's anxious to rekindle their former romance, Marion wants nothing to do with him, and she sets him up with Pauline. The romantic web gets more tangled yet when Marion starts a liaison with Henri (Féodor Atkine), a middle-aged playboy.

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Jake Wilson

The Age (Australia)

Flawlessly constructed as usual, this 1983 instalment in Eric Rohmer's Comedies and Proverbs series is one of his most sensual films - and one of his saddest.

Oct 30, 2020

Full Review

J. Hoberman

The New York Review of Books

French bedroom farce stripped down to its essentials.

Aug 14, 2020

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Vincent Canby

New York Times

I hope that Pauline at the Beach will win new admirers for Mr. Rohmer, one of the most original and elegant film makers at work today in any country.

Rated: 5/5

Aug 30, 2004

Full Review

Farah Cheded

A Good Movie To Watch

Éric Rohmer movies are what you watch when you want to experience the thrill of someone putting into words something you might never have been able to express yourself [...] Pauline at the Beach is a dazzling example of that quality.

Sep 23, 2023

Full Review

Yasser Medina

Cinefilia

Rohmer, supported again by the enriching visual style of Néstor Almendros, portrays a very pleasant moral tale about adultery, relationships and love dilemmas with splendid characters. [Full review in Spanish]

Rated: 7/10

Nov 25, 2020

Full Review

Molly Haskell

Vogue

Pauline At The Beach is a feast of talking heads and more. It is cerebral and sensual as only Rohmer can combine the two.

Feb 26, 2020

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Audience Member

Unmistakably French movie almost painfully focused on love and a search for one. Practically all dialogues are dedicated to explaining the protagonists' cravings for finding their true love and what true love actually is. The film is refreshingly lightweight and eye friendly without crossing any vulgar lines but successfully depicting the sexual air of the summer French resort.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/05/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Boring film rubbish trash don't watch

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

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Audience Member

Rohmer is confident in his handful of characters so much, that he'd rather focus on the environment- if not on them- than investing on other distractions. Pauline At The Beach Rohmer is.. just perfect. I couldn't come up with any other adjective to describe him and his film. The writer and director, Eric Rohmer, is whispering something pure than you cannot anticipate. After the electric shock that the film zinged me with, I have never, then, tried to know about the film before jumping in. Just discovering the absurdity and the genuinity of the storytelling as it unfolds in front of your eyes, is half the fun. Take the word and jump for it, no matter of what genre you think you belong to, there is every single type of appetiser for you. And the one that catches you off guard the most is the horror aspect of the storytelling. Similar to James Ivory's picturization- I got the recommendation itself like that, it is a sort of film that Ivory would invest on- the film is easy to look at. With stunning live location coming alive on the screen and the fresh air blown in your face, the film stays breezy, even though derailing aplenty, grabbing other genre coins, in this big beautiful marathon. And a script that often looks like a part of some play, the philosophical conversations, if goes of preaching-to-the-choir tone, it is definitely intended. That deliberate amateurish-ness and finiteness of each character's views, is what draws me. Never for a second, Rohmer wishes the film to grows beyond a film. The profound theories that they blab about is overpowered with a towering mesmerising method of his. Another smart trick he invests on, is placing the cameras in a specific place while projecting one definite location. This repetitive nature in his camera work allows us to feel like our home town. The roads, the balcony, the room and the house, we do get to spend a summer vacation in there along with Pauline At The Beach.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/20/23

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Audience Member

So sexy yet so endearingly true. Rohmer is a genius in telling simple stories.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

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Audience Member

Alrightee (in relative speaking) in story.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/04/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Phenomenal use of reaction shots by Rohmer.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

Full Review

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Éric Rohmer

Director

Arielle Dombasle

Marion

Amanda Langlet

Pauline

Féodor Atkine

Henri

Pascal Greggory

Pierre

Simon de la Brosse

Sylvain

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100%

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50%

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Synopsis

Fifteen-year-old Pauline (Amanda Langlet) journeys to the Normandy coast for a summer vacation with her adult cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasle). Marion is waiting out her divorce and, along the shore, runs into her old flame Pierre (Pascal Greggory). Although he's anxious to rekindle their former romance, Marion wants nothing to do with him, and she sets him up with Pauline. The romantic web gets more tangled yet when Marion starts a liaison with Henri (Féodor Atkine), a middle-aged playboy.

Director: Éric Rohmer
Distributor: Orion Pictures
Production Co: Les Films du Losange, Les Films Ariane
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
Original Language: French (Canada)
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 23, 1983, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 8, 2017
Runtime: 1h 31m
Sound Mix: Mono