Bel Ami
Tagline: Temptation. Seduction. Obsession.
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If you’re a teenage girl, you haven’t been forgotten amidst the sci-fi and animation. Bel Ami stars Twilight vampire Robert Pattinson, who continues his quest to show the world he’s got grown-up acting chops in this version of the 19th-century novel by French writer Guy de Maupassant. He plays Georges Duroy, the man who scandalously slept his way to the top of Paris high society in the 1890s with some of the city’s most influential women.
Pattinson is sensibly surrounded by some safe actorly hands, in the shape of Kristin Scott Thomas (who plays a woman sexually corrupted by Duroy in his efforts to influence her husband), Christina Ricci (the oh so naughty Clotilde), and Uma Thurman as Duroy’s wife. Critics, however, have not been as accommodating. “A good-looking yet curiously tame adaptation of a saucy classic that showcases Pattinson’s ambition if not his full abilities,” concludes Total Film. “Bel Ami stutters rather than glides and while punctuated by some impressive performances and a fine sense of design it can never quite find the right balance between its twin storylines of seduction and politics,”says Screen Daily.
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NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: Prometheus for the adults, Madagascar for the kids and Bel Ami for everyone else! But if pushed, we’ll have to go for the big blockbuster.