MOVIE MASQUERADE. Nicolas Bedos’ latest film was released in cinemas on November 1, 2022. Should we see it? What critics say about “Masquerade”.
[Mis à jour le 2 novembre 2022 à 11h48] After Mr and Mrs Adelman, The good times and OSS 117: Red alert in black Africa, Nicolas Bedos signs his fourth film as a director. Masquerade is one of the particularly scrutinized cinema releases of Tuesday, November 1, 2022. This feature film brings together Pierre Niney, Marine Vacht, Isabelle Adjani and François Cluzet in the cast, in this satirical and cruel scam film. With an average rating of 2.7/5 on Allociné, the press is decidedly divided on this new proposal from the son of Guy Bedos to mimic the superficiality of the ultra-rich on the Côte d’Azur.
Among the critics conquered, let us quote Le Figaro, for whom Nicolas Bedos signs “a virtuoso film”, while the daily 20 minutes salutes “excellent performers”. For CNews, this comedy of manners “cruel and joyfully iconoclastic, amoral and visually superb” is filmed “with rhythm, elegance and efficiency”. For Marianne, Masquerade is “a film for the spectators, a film in which the obvious pleasure [le réalisateur] […] is transmitted to those who follow this story of fraud, passionate love, petty pettiness and great destruction”, when The Obs admits that it is an “ambitious film, and too long” (2h14).
But not all critics are won over by Masquerade, quite the contrary. Faced with worshipers, we find the ultra-disappointed. In halftone, the specialist magazine First deplores the fact that “by refusing to choose which film he wants to make, Nicolas Bedos misses his cynical charge against the hyper-rich”. The Parisian points to the “vulgarity” of the film, calling it a “loathsome comedy”. Telerama (“pathetic movie where bling is king”) and Release (“the film is like what it pretends to make fun of: capricious, fascinated by its fake splendor, megalomaniac”) think no less. Definitely, either we like it or we hate it! It is now up to the viewer to form their own opinion.
Synopsis – When a young gigolo (Pierre Niney) falls under the spell of a sublime scammer (Marine Vacth), it is the beginning of a Machiavellian plan under the burning sun of the Côte d’Azur. Are the two lovers ready to do anything to afford a dream life, even if it means sacrificing that of a former glory of cinema (Isabelle Adjani) and a real estate agent (François Cluzet)? Passions, crimes, betrayals…