The Rules of the Game (2022)

Good movie but grossly overrated

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The Rules of the Game is not like any other film that I know of. It can only be evaluated as a historic work of art - it certainly transcends its medium. It is so untheatrical, despite a riveting finale and a luscious script, that it can hardly be described as entertainment. But in terms of powerful cinema it is fireworks. Renoir really outdid himself with this film, which will always be relevant because it reveals such basic truth and says the unthinkable.One particularly interesting quality of this film is the dynamics of its character development. The characters, as Renoir describes them, are simple, yet they are developed to their furthest conclusions. It shows the harsh reality of private life in comparison to public persona as well as the harsh reality of fate and judgment."Sensitive hearts, faithful hearts Who shun love whither it does range Cease to be so bitter Is it a crime to change? If Cupid was given wings Was it not to flitter?"

Renoir's almost-lost pre-WWII demoralizing comedy is the introductory piece invites me for a first glance into his everlasting cinematic legacy. After numerous reconstruction, the extant version of THE RULES OF THE GAME is nearly intact, the narrative circles around a bourgeois couple Robert de la Cheyniest (Dalio) and Christine (Gregor), who invite their friends and kins to the countryside château for a leisurely sojourn, yet it is an acrid send-up of the callousness and duplicity of French society at that time, an exceptional chamber drama which anticipates the likes of Altman's GOSFORD PARK (2001, 9/10) and Woody Allen-esque moral satires. Among the guests, there is André Jurieux (Toutain), a heroic aviator who has just accomplished a record-breaking transatlantic flight, he is greatly enamored of Christine, and his relentless courtship would stir up her unresponsive veneer. Meanwhile, Robert's mistress Geneviève (Parély), whose presence also ups the antes of the hysterical dramatization in the film's climatic running-and-chasing farce. Upstairs are in a ridiculous imbroglio, downstairs is no peace either. Christine's young maid Lisette (Dubost) doesn't resist the flirt from a newly-recruited poacher- turned-servant Marceau (Carette), while her jealousy-driven gamekeeper husband Edouard (Modot) determines to shoot the brazen libertine. During the al fresco scenes, the quasi-non-fictional shots of hunting-for-pleasure segment bears witness of Renoir's sleight-of-hand as an avant-garde adventurer as well as the elegant progression among a simultaneously-conversing large cast, the château under his hands, is closer to a labyrinth than a regal residence. Buffoonery aside, the film ends up with an unannounced tragedy based on mistaken identities, which would vexingly evolve into one of the most clichéd antics in the narrative tactics. But here, the incident transcends the fluffy tonality running on and on for 90 minutes, and from which derives a pungent bitter taste when all the courtesies are shed in front of viewers, it is only an inconvenient interlude, everything must return to status quo.A commendable cast indeed, Gregor is a far cry to be young and attractive, but shimmers with self-regarding aloofness, Dalio is effeminate and a caricature of the decadence of his class, Carette and Dubost strike more naturalistic than others, and Renoir himself plays Octave, a plump friend of Christine and André, how he gets out of Christine's brother-zone is perplexing, but it is him who inadvertently dodges the bullet on a whim to adhere to the rules of the game, so the sole scapegoat is the one who is too upstanding for the game, the film scores the bull's- eye and the irony is all in-your-face!

I begin to say that if the killing of animals we see in the hunting sequences are real this movie must be utterly condemned for cruelty against animals and I would refuse to rate or comment it. Therefore the rating and review I am doing here is in the supposition that these killings are feigned. Thus beyond this I think this is a good movie that can be called precisely what its great French director Renoir called it: a cheerful drama. The story takes place on the eve of World War Two and shows a corrupt society living in strong moral decay despite the appearance of good manners and usages. In a aristocratic castle a hunting party is organized and we can see a lot of intertwined adulteries not only in the aristocrats' and bourgeois' society but also in the society of their servants. Renoir treats this with real mastery but in a somewhat light and not too deep way which though while done with his great talent masks the dramatic features a bit superficially. This movie was a commercial failure when it was released in 1939 and only much later and not long ago has it begun to be considered one of the greatest films ever made. But after its release it was even banned by the French government as "demoralising" and "unpatriotic". War was already in the offing then.

Jean Renoir lets his genius shine in this comedic drama about bourgeois life in France on the onset of World War II. The film has a vast array of characters, some rich some poor, who meet at a château for a lavish party thrown by one of the esteemed couples of the land. Tensions flare and things heat up fast at the party as personalities clash and adultery is committed left and right. On the outside this film is an entertaining comedy about a group of hooligans who all have very loose morals. But underneath it is a brutally honest statement about bourgeois life in France. It unmasks the hypocrisy and lewd behavior these people elicit and how it affects all social classes, not just their own.You have to dig pretty deep to find the hidden meanings of this film. That's especially difficult to do when you're like me and you go into the film with no prior knowledge, not knowing what to look for. The film came as a surprise to me as it threw all of its dialogue and action at me without giving signs of a deeper meaning. I really just had to sit back and enjoy the surface story, which was enjoyable enough. It is one of those complex love triangle movies, but this wasn't difficult to follow. You know who's married to who and who is in love with who, never the same person of course, and once you piece all this together the situational comedy aspect becomes a delight later into the film.The film's dialogue is where it really shines though. The banter between characters is always efficient and sophisticated but always has that real world tinge to it. The dialogue is sly and clever, and there's a lot of it. Most of the film is dialogue, a nuance that I am a huge fan of. This film captures a perfect cadence which drives the action through words extremely well. The whole film drives incredibly well, drumming along at a brisk and exciting pace. It is a finely tuned film with all the qualities one should expect from a director as fine as Jean Renoir.So much of the quality of The Rules of the Game comes from the deep subtext. What's on the surface is something I'm usually not a big fan of, love triangles. But this film is made so well that I have to respect it for all its finesse, and then it is also fascinating to dissect the film and analyze its deeper meanings. I haven't quite solidified my analysis, so right now the film stands as a bewildering sociological maze to me. But of course I have undying respect for Renoir's talent and am truly fascinated by his multi level filmmaking that he displays so intelligently in The Rules of the Game.