The Wounded Man

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1:46

The Wounded Man

2023

1h 49m

Drama

Mystery & Thriller

LGBTQ+

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

91%

Tomatometer

11 Reviews

82%

Popcornmeter

250+ Ratings

Henri is a frustrated teenager living with his parents in a provincial French coastal town. When they drag him to the train station to bid adieu to his sister, Henri sneaks off to a secluded bathroom and interrupts a hustler named Jean satisfying the masochistic desires of an older male client. Henri falls desperately in love with the sexy criminal, but Jean evades Henri's affections. Undeterred, Henri shadows Jean as he traverses the dark and dangerous underbelly of their sleepy village. But as he descends deeper and deeper into Jean's world, there may not be an easy way out. Patrice Chéreau's 1983 drama is a revelation: an amazingly accomplished work that genuinely channels the transgressive, unsanitized sensibility of Jean Genet, boasting a breakout lead performance by young Jean-Hugues Anglade and a script that took co-writers Chéreau and legendary gay French author and activist Hervé Guibert six years to perfect. The result is a rich, strange, and sumptuous film leading us to exhilaratingly mysterious and unfamiliar spaces both physical and psychological.

Melissa Anderson

4Columns

05/19/2023

Chéreau excelled at modestly scaled portraits of people coming undone by their needs, particularly when they can’t articulate them. That’s especially the case with The Wounded Man....a film of potent, unsanitized eros.

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André Hereford

Metro Weekly (Washington, DC)

06/12/2023

3/5

Gorgeously restored, Patrice Chéreau's erotically-charged '80s queer classic 'The Wounded Man' finally comes to digital home video.

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Terry Mesnard

Gayly Dreadful

05/24/2023

4/5

Anchored by a strong performance from Jean-Hugues Anglade that oozes sensuality and uncertainty, The Wounded Man is not a cheery portrayal of young lust and cruising, but instead feels indebted to rising tensions in the community in the 80s.

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Frank J. Avella

Edge Media Network

03/27/2023

A-

...a bold, edgy, nasty and wholly beguiling coming-of-age tale...A fully committed Jean-Hugues Anglade plays Henri, a confused, sexually-repressed 20-year-old who becomes obsessed with the enigmatic Jean (brooding and intense Vittorio Mezzogiorno)...

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Dennis Harvey

48 Hills

02/16/2023

Increasingly obsessive desire runs headlong into “mixed signals” to a maddening degree, in one of the medium’s great, tortured portraits of sexual frustration.

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Gary M. Kramer

Gay City News

12/31/2022

“The Wounded Man” is not soon forgotten by anyone who sees it.... The mysterious, dream-like quality of the film is mesmerizing.

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gabriel m

01/07/2023

Interesting plot and unpredictable story. Good acting with some obvious momments

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02/15/2008

THIS MOVIE SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED... THE WOUNDED AUDIENCE. This movie was plain weird, followed no real story line, did not develop the characters or give enough information to understand these motives, aside from the fact that the acting was at best mediocre. I definitely do not recommend this one!

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01/13/2008

J'ai vu ce film a 20 ans - je ne connaissais aucun gay et il y a de quoi se jeter du haut d'une falaise. A voir de nos jour pour scruter le passe.

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12/27/2007

even if one is not gay,this movie "moved"

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08/12/2007

Depressing French gay film.

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Patrice Chéreau

Director

Jean-Hugues Anglade

Actor

Vittorio Mezzogiorno

Actor

Roland Bertin

Actor

Lisa Kreuzer

Actor

Claude Berri

Actor

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The Wounded Man: Trailer 1

1:46

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Synopsis

Henri is a frustrated teenager living with his parents in a provincial French coastal town. When they drag him to the train station to bid adieu to his sister, Henri sneaks off to a secluded bathroom and interrupts a hustler named Jean satisfying the masochistic desires of an older male client. Henri falls desperately in love with the sexy criminal, but Jean evades Henri's affections. Undeterred, Henri shadows Jean as he traverses the dark and dangerous underbelly of their sleepy village. But as he descends deeper and deeper into Jean's world, there may not be an easy way out. Patrice Chéreau's 1983 drama is a revelation: an amazingly accomplished work that genuinely channels the transgressive, unsanitized sensibility of Jean Genet, boasting a breakout lead performance by young Jean-Hugues Anglade and a script that took co-writers Chéreau and legendary gay French author and activist Hervé Guibert six years to perfect. The result is a rich, strange, and sumptuous film leading us to exhilaratingly mysterious and unfamiliar spaces both physical and psychological.

Director: Patrice Chéreau
Producer: Ariel Zeitoun, Claude Berri, Marie-Laure Reyre
Screenwriter: Patrice Chéreau, Hervé Guibert
Distributor: Altered Innocence
Production Co: Gaumont, Oliane Productions, Renn Productions
Genre: Drama, Mystery & Thriller, LGBTQ+
Original Language: Canadian French
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 5, 2023, Limited
Release Date (DVD): May 23, 2023
Runtime: 1h 49m