‎My Night at Maud's (1969) directed by Éric Rohmer • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

My Night at Maud's

1969 ‘Ma nuit chez Maud’ Directed by Éric Rohmer

The rigid principles of a devout Catholic man are challenged during a one-night stay with Maud, a divorced woman with an outsize personality.

Jean-Louis Trintignant Françoise Fabian Marie-Christine Barrault Antoine Vitez Léonide Kogan Guy Léger

Alternative Titles

My Night with Maud, 我在溫柔鄉

comedy drama romance

111 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by FernandoFCroce ★★★★½

Vertigo is the basis, which Eric Rohmer once analyzed in a prophecy of his own aesthetic: "We travel in space the way we travel in time, as our thoughts and the characters’ thoughts also travel." The preamble traces Jean-Louis Trintignant’s drive from the Ceyrat countryside to frosty Clermont-Ferrand, a long-shot of the urban landscape finds church towers rising out of early-morning mist. The Elusive Woman (Marie-Christine Barrault) is a pious blonde kneeling at Mass; she’s a practicing Catholic like him, he follows her, loses her, decides she will be his wife. He bumps into a Marxist chum (Antoine Videz), they talk Pascal -- Videz appreciates the logic of the Wager (you lose nothing but can gain plenty with faith, the…
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 5

Mohamed Radwan's #6 Film Selection for Edgar

Eric Rohmer's 3rd Moral Tale

-->Possible moral topic(s) treated: The substitution of principles dictated by moral codes with irrational impulses that contradict them.

Note: Although this gem was planned as the third moral tale, it was released after the fourth moral tale La Collectionneuse (1967) due to delay in production.

In short, My Night at Maud's is a tremendous cinema masterpiece in all imaginable aspects.

Jesus, how do I begin punching this damn keyboard?

Ok, first. Rohmer's elements! Yeah, his elements.

Ummm...

A) Rohmer was known at this point for utilizing a literary narrative, in which a protagonistic voiceover narration would reveal what wasn't told or shown explicitly to the viewer. In the…
Review by Rick Burin ★★★★½ 6

*SOME SPOILERS*

I’ve become a huge Eric Rohmer fan over the past few years. The older I get, and the more complex my idea of life becomes, the more I appreciate his work: full of eroticism, irony and paradox, where the sun only comes out to cast darker shadows. There’s no denying, though, that many of his films follow a certain formula: not just in their plots (his six Moral Tales, made between 1962 and ’72, are all based on F. W. Murnau’s expressionist silent romance, Sunrise), but also in the form and structure he favours. My Night at Maud’s isn’t his best movie, but it’s perhaps his most Rohmerish, almost to the point of exaggeration: it begins slowly, turns…
Review by Ariel Gardner ★★★★★

Rohmer really mastered the art of tell-don’t-show. He makes a high-wire circus act out of intelligent people simply articulating their reasonings, beliefs, and contradictions. It works because he’s able to access and convey the depth in each of his characters with complete authenticity. No stone left unturned.
Review by Lawrence Garcia ★★★★★

Almost too immense to put into words, despite the gorgeous simplicity of the story. It's a small, insular narrative that nonetheless feels immense and overwhelming - a masterpiece, in other words. Will reserve more detailed comment for a third viewing, except to note that emphasis on Rohmer's dialogue gives short shrift to the keenness (and importance) of his visuals: e.g. the shot of the two couples ascending a snowy hillside; the slow zoom towards Jean-Louis and Françoise confessing to each other; the ironic distance of that closing image of familial bliss (an echo of Varda's Le bonheur). And then, of course, there's that lovely single-take of Maud recounting her love affair and baring her soul, which is as wonderful an…
Review by Varghese Eapen ★★★★★

Dear Maud,

Where have you been all my life? Why have you been hiding from me?Your intellectual sex appeal has floored me to smithereens...your subtle beauty is brimming with pathos of the broken heart...i want to marry someone like you :-)

My first experience of Eric Rohmer has completely devastated me...this self reflexive work tapping into one of the earliest depiction on modern relationships continues to contemplate my thoughts...kudos to Néstor Almendros for his simple yet resplendent black and white camerawork...

I would love to have conversations discussing various topics thereby getting to know someone much better on a deeper level...it felt like Rohmer was directly talking to me at certain moments...

Religion,Sex,Mathematics are juxtaposed in a intoxicating cocktail...Jean-Louis Trintignant perfectly depicts the conundrum of having faith and traditions broken...Marie-Christine Barrault radiates with an effervescent charm :-)

The scenes set completely at Maud's is one of the most beautiful i have seen in my life,immaculate and thought provoking!

Recent reviews

Review by Jdsarmiento ★★★½

One of those films that I appreciate more than actually enjoy. A clearly intelligent film with complex conversations and despite a minimal story, comes full-circle.

Rohmer is a very interesting director, but he's more cerebral than cinematic (and I enjoy both equally). I will say this though, I doubt anything will ever match up to "The Green Ray".
Review by Samuli ★★½

Despite Françoise Fabian’s great, earthy performance... going from the lighter, immensely entertaining and character-driven tone of the Comedies and Proverbs to My Night at Maud’s endless yammering about Pascal, philosophy and statistics was jarring and frankly, boring.
Review by Henri ★★★★

Eloquently appeals to art's alleged purpose of stimulating thoughts and evoking different perspectives.

Seeing that the film is basically just a massive dialogue between a few individuals, it is also surprisingly immersive, as it genuinely invites the viewer to reflect and position themselves corresponding to the conversations and themes. So many scenes reminded me of some memories of thoughts I've once had, and therefore evoked quite a bit of personal processing.

At the same time, the characters tend to remain distant despite all the talking. I think the film is also remarkably tied to its wintery season, which emphasizes the kind of cold atmosphere on different levels. Of course there are also some beautiful and emotive shots, especially outside the apartments.

Rewatch(es) could easily be warranted, since it's obviously difficult to concentrate on all the different aspects and viewpoints to consider here - at least for me such dialogue-heavy films are also the most demanding kind.
Review by Fides ★★★½

Another one of Rohmer’s moral tales, another delicate philosophical wonder. Unsurprisingly, the film is about a middle-aged man at the cusp of a moral crisis, yet again delivered by a woman who serves as the antithesis to his principles. Jean-Louis is a devout Catholic, whose austere existence is governed by his firm belief in predestination and the mathematical probability of reward. As he spends a night with Maud, his safe, calculated worldview is challenged, and he is confronted with the decision of what he truly desires out of life. The film opens a thoughtful debate on the Pascalian wager, which rationalizes the merits of hope. (I suggest looking this up, so interesting.) Infinite gain versus infinite loss, eternal salvation versus…
Review by trevoryoung ★★★½

2 moral tales down. Liked this one a bit less than Claire's Knee. The prominence of the religion aspect made this seem a bit more conservative and I think some of the plot beats were a bit more awkward. Overall though this contained much of what I like about Rohmer. The acting and conversations are all interesting, the flow continues with that French literary style I liked previously and the ambigious moral positions the characters find themselves in remains exciting. Clermont-Ferrand is no Annecy though.
Review by Bryan Claudio ★★★½

"I'm happy around you. If I'm happy with you, it's because we'll never meet again. The thought of the future needn't depress us, since we have none."
Review by MLTNGDWN ★★★★

불확정성의 원리는 사실 원론적으로 이성적이라 믿는 수학과 비이성적이라고 여겨지는 신앙 모두에게 적용된다. 종교는 이를 부인하는 반면, 수학은 도리어 최선을 다해 몸을 던지라 얘기한다. 이 모호한 관계성은 운명이라는 두 직선으로 치환되어, 교차점을 계산하게 되는 함수로 여겨진다.
Review by Timothy Lawrence ★★★★½

A film in which people have long, detailed conversations about Pascal.

In other words, my kind of film.
Review by reaganjones26 ★★★★½

aggressively talky. basically two hours of rigorous debate on the intersection between Christianity and sex. as you may could guess from that brief description, this was...heavily my shit. excited to watch more Rohmer, whom I am hoping is essentially the Richard Linklater of the French New Wave.