Slack Bay

Released Apr 21, 2017

2h 2m

Comedy

Drama

TRAILER

for Slack Bay: Trailer 1

List

65%

82 Reviews

Tomatometer

41%

100+ Ratings

Audience Score

Inspectors Machin and Malfoy investigate after tourists vanish from beaches on the Channel Coast.

Read More

Read Less

Watch on Fandango at Home

Premiered May 02

Buy Now

Fandango at Home

Prime Video

Rent Slack Bay on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

Critics Consensus

Slack Bay won't resonate with all viewers, but for filmgoers attuned to absurd French farce, its slapstick chaos should deliver just enough belly laughs.

Read Critics Reviews

Elissa Suh

StageBuddy.com

Watching Slack Bay is like listening to a stranger's overlong joke.

Mar 13, 2020

Full Review

Jake Wilson

The Age (Australia)

Slack Bay is not always funny, but it's truly unique and in the long run, more emotionally powerful than might be expected.

Rated: 4/5

Dec 21, 2017

Full Review

David Stratton

The Australian

Slack Bay is a very weird concoction that won't be to everyone's taste. Yet this superbly photographed fabrication is, ultimately, strangely compelling.

Rated: 3/5

Dec 8, 2017

Full Review

Michael J. Casey

Michael J. Cinema

A bourgeois farce made by a filmmaker who is above such silly matters.

Rated: 1.5/5

May 13, 2021

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

Dumont glides deliriously into territories so nonsensical he freely blends wistful notes of the grotesque and profane into sacerdotal mystique for a film treatment as profoundly off-putting as it is fascinating.

Rated: 3.5/5

Oct 9, 2019

Full Review

Alexa Dalby

Dog and Wolf

It's a cinema of the absurd with a tone reminiscent of Ionesco's The Bald Prima Donna, a bizarre, grotesque black comedy that swerves into inexplicable events, with the joke so over the top that it's stretched as far as it can go.

Rated: 3/5

Oct 17, 2018

Full Review

Read all reviews

Audience Member

Bruno Dumont's film Slack Bay (French title La Moute), released in the U. S. last year, resists easy labels and categorizations. It somehow manages to be both baldly plain in its purpose and entirely baffling. Most critics responded with either disinterest or disgust. Audiences hated it even more, judging by its 35% score on Rotten Tomatoes. I found it thrilling. Calling it merely a "farce" might be too tame for capturing just what boundaries it crosses and how far it goes. There is a cartoonish quality in which bourgeois culture is savagely lampooned (Juliet Binoche has never skittered about the screen quite so dimwittedly and hysterical as she does in Dumont's film). But, underneath the hijinks, there's a heart black as coal. Slack Bay takes the "eat the rich" dictum literally, and never before have I seen a film shuffle back and forth between the genres of screwball and body-horror so nonchalantly. Stately compositions and strikingly crisp cinematography frame these otherwise incongruous worlds, adding to the overall absurdist conflation that is this film. Slack Bay strikes so many outlandish postures at once, it seems absolutely capable of anything. During the film, one character, played by Fabriche Luchini, remarks on his estate's view overlooking the eponymous bay, "One sees it so much, one no longer notices it anymore." Nothing is familiar in Slack Bay, and, because of that, you notice everything.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/06/23

Full Review

Audience Member

What a waste of time.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

01/19/18

Full Review

Audience Member

Una delicia absoluta.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/15/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I've wasted 2 hours of my life that I can't get back.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/22/23

Full Review

steve w

I found this mostly irritating and very unfunny when I watched it. Every time that something happened which piqued my interest, a moment or two later some piece of leaden humour - usually involving someone falling over - would kill the pleasure. It just shows how brilliant Laurel and Hardy were in creating timeless comedy out of the same ingredients of physical humour and simplistic characterization.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. Some brilliant actors performing so over-the-top it becomes annoying and embarrassing. The director takes desperate measures to insert laugh-aloud moments in a dark comedy that includes graphic cannibalism, but in the end they lead nowhere, which led many in the screening I attended to the exit.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

Full Review

Read all reviews

Post a rating

Bruno Dumont

Director

Fabrice Luchini

André Van Peteghem

Juliette Binoche

Aude Van Peteghem

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi

Isabelle Van Peteghem

Jean-Luc Vincent

Christian Van Peteghem

Brandon Lavieville

Ma Loute Brufort

Show Less Cast & Crew

Show More Cast & Crew

75%

89%

High Fantasy

100%

%

Twice Shy

40%

40%

Law and Disorder

33%

31%

King of Thieves

TRAILER

for King of Thieves

91%

57%

The Confirmation

TRAILER

for The Confirmation

Discover more movies and TV shows.

View More

Watch Online: Beauty and the Beast, American Vandal, The Lost City of Z, and More on Netflix and Amazon Prime

Lost City of Z and Fargo Season 3 Are Certified Fresh

Slack Bay: Trailer 1

1:52

View more videos

View more photos

Synopsis

Inspectors Machin and Malfoy investigate after tourists vanish from beaches on the Channel Coast.

Director: Bruno Dumont
Screenwriter: Bruno Dumont
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Production Co: arte France Cinéma, 3B Productions, Pallas Film, Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion, WDR/Arte
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Theaters): Apr 21, 2017, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Aug 1, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $112.4K
Runtime: 2h 2m
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Most Popular at Home Now