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A Woman Without Love

1952 1h 30m Drama List
Tomatometer 3 Reviews 38% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
A married woman has an affair and returns to her husband. Twenty years later, the man dies and leaves his fortune to her younger son, leading to questions of his parentage.

Critics Reviews

View All (3) Critics Reviews
Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine Though arguably Buuel's "worst" film, A Woman Without Love is a perfectly routine melodrama that most directors would be happy to call their "best" film. Rated: 3/4 May 15, 2002 Full Review Dave Kehr Chicago Reader Another relatively unseen film from Luis Buuel's Mexican period. Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews A decent film but without the acclaimed filmmaker's usual surrealism, as it had more commercial aspirations than most of his films. Rated: B Mar 7, 2011 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (12) audience reviews
Audience Member Low-key, sudsy melodrama. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member Mediocre. Luis Bunuel was only being hired as a director here but it was not his movie at all. You can tell is not part of his oeuvre. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member Made by anyone else “A Woman Without Love” would be a decent film, but in the hands of Luis Buñuel it is obvious the surrealist master refuses to connect with the subject matter and put his heart into it. The story takes its time, making for an extremely lackluster first half-hour, but gets moving once the plot is established. Rosario Granados is enchanting as a mother who has an affair resulting in a child: her second son. After the youngest boy receives a will twenty years later his reason for acquiring it becomes obvious to the eldest, which fuels the subsequent misogynist feelings he experiences toward his mother and women in general. These tones of misogyny are quite strong and there is, as always with Buñuel, a polemical critique of the bourgeois showing that the auteur’s views have not been entirely suppressed in this minor work. The view is that a woman without love is a woman without a heart, and he has no problem in establishing this belief in the form of his protagonist. She chooses to stay with her wealthy and inconsiderate husband, no matter how much she despises him in longing for the love she has never felt. She cares for her sons, but continues to keep them in the dark until the very end. Consequently, she is looked down upon by the director who influences the viewer in the way he portrays and refuses to liberate her. There is little resolution to her suffering in the end, marking a bleak and heavy-handed entry into the Buñuel canon. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review eric b "A Woman Without Love" is certainly one of Luis Bunuel's least characteristic films. Minus some cynicism about the temptations of beautiful women, this soppy melodrama is virtually untouched by Bunuel's usual trademarks.Based on a Guy de Maupassant short story, the tale focuses on a young woman who has put financial security before love and married an older, somewhat boorish doctor. They have a son, and his behavior problems inadvertently bring together his mother and a kind, handsome forester. The two have an intense but secret romance which is only revealed decades later, when the lover dies and chooses a puzzling heir for his fortune.The filmmaking is surprisingly polished and commercial, with a soap opera's predictable connections between emotional scenes and a swelling, cornball soundtrack. Cliched moments such as tearing up someone's picture in anger and dramatically timed heart attacks are bound to cause eyerolls.Sad to say, Bunuel completism is the only reason to see this thoroughly unremarkable film. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Mostly vacuous melodrama by Bunuel, possibly done just for the paycheck. Besides some brutish behavior (which gets dismissed rather easily), there's little of his directorial stamp on this film. I guess it's decent enough for a women's weepie, but you shouldn't bother unless you're a Bunuel completist. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member Espectaculares películas de la época de oro.. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Read all reviews
A Woman Without Love

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Cast & Crew

Movie Info

Synopsis A married woman has an affair and returns to her husband. Twenty years later, the man dies and leaves his fortune to her younger son, leading to questions of his parentage.
Director
Luis Buñuel
Producer
Sergio Kogan
Screenwriter
Jaime Salvador, Rodolfo Usigli, Luis Buñuel
Genre
Drama
Original Language
Spanish
Release Date (Streaming)
Apr 29, 2021
Runtime
1h 30m