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List Price: $24.98 | | Label: Fox Lorber
Salesrank: 39565
Released: July 5, 2000 |
| Our Price: $22.89 |
| Used Price: $18.00 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A day in the life of a young Parisian woman, Valerie, shot in real time. Follow Valerie around as she meditates on the paths of human nature she crosses, sometimes comic, sometimes hostile, which lead her to make important decisions about her future.
Description of A Single Girl:
Next to the blandly flawless feminist heroines played by Demi Moore and Meg Ryan in American movies, Valerie (Virginie Ledoyen), the protagonist in Benoît Jacquot's excellent French film A Single Girl, boasts a whole catalog of shortcomings. Yes, she is young and beautiful (movies are movies, even in the French realist tradition), but she is also selfish, uncertain, irresponsible, and occasionally cruel. Moore's example to the contrary, it's hard to be a saint when you're about to become a single mom, when your boyfriend has been languishing on unemployment, when your own mother behaves more like a dependent child, and when the first job you've been able to find in a year is as a room-service waiter in a luxury hotel.
Valerie's indoctrination at the hotel is her indoctrination into a new system of power and intimidation, some of it economic (the female boss who takes the opportunity to humiliate her), some of it sexual (an abusive coworker who tries to blackmail her), and some of it unpredictably, messily human (the unwanted intimacies she is forced to share with the strangers whose bedrooms and lives she briefly enters). As Valerie, Virginie Ledoyen is a revelation, an intense and serious young performer with the kind of open face that the camera loves. Onscreen every instant, she carries the film with ease and assurance. --Dave Kehr
A Single Girl Reviews:
Not bad at all 
2007-05-06 - A pleasant surprise and not without some thought provoking action. Many scenes are very easy on the eyes too .
Young and proud and fearless.
2005-07-02 - The heroine, Valerie, played by Virginie Ledoyen, is young, proud, and fearless. In a culture, where individualism and rationalism have reached their logical extreme, the only force that is left to work free is the physical beauty that has not been tamed or tainted by the insatiable desires of the old and aged ones. Valerie is too young to know that her beauty will fade one day, and her power will be gone. She enjoys others attentions, and she disdains their lack of spirit.
If you find the above introduction confusing, you should watch the film. The film portrays a young woman, who courageously makes tough choices, despite all the external forces that attempt to pull her life apart into pieces. Many forces are at work here, but Valerie decides not to succomb to "others", but to make her life beautiful. It's a story of triumph.
Excellent commentary on relationships 
2002-12-05 - Although this movie seems to center on the scintillatingly beautiful Virginie Ledoyen, it actually provides an in-depth portrait of the nature of relationships. While trying to make a decision about her life, Ledoyen encounters a number of characters, each engaged in a negative relationship. She witnesses the joys and pitfalls of the people she meets, and the sight of each hurtful relationship seems to make her withdraw. The triumph of the movie is watching Ledoyen grow more remote and distant with each encounter, leading to her own seemingly baffling decision at the end of the movie.
I would encourage anyone to watch this movie and understand that it is more than a story about Ledoyen's character-it is a commentary piece, with Ledoyen representing the audience. Five stars.
An outstanding film, but probably not for all tastes.
2002-01-07 - Like Godard's VIVRE SA VIE, A SINGLE GIRL is ultimately an affectionate character study of its leading lady, Virginie Ledoyen. Thus, how you respond to this film will depend on how captivated you are by Ledoyen's performance. Prior to viewing A SINGLE GIRL, I was somewhat baffled by her rise to something of cult status in French cinema. Yes, as one reviewer mentioned, she has a cute face, but there is no shortage of cute faces in cinema these days. What is most striking about Ledoyen's performance in A SINGLE GIRL, and what really convinced me of her talent, is the depth and range of feeling she is able to convey just by her movements and expressions. Although she is on screen for the whole picture, she has relatively few lines, and what her character does say, is usually evasive. And yet in order to sell her character, Ledoyen must make her viewer feel the anxiety of a young woman confronting an uncertain situation. One of the more remarkable passages of this film is when Ledoyen calls her mother, and in that phone conversation attempts to tell her mother everything without saying much of anything. It is a riveting scene which has her character searching for maternal affection, while trying to mask her vulnerability.
If you are not similarly enchanted by Ledoyen's performance, it goes without saying that you will not appreciate this film. As the screenplay is lackluster in points and the ending is dissapointing, A SINGLE GIRL succeeds mainly because of Ledoyen's performance (though the supprorting cast is also excellent). If you do not find her peformance absorbing, the real time narration will lose all of its force. As a result, I would recommend that you rent this DVD first. I highly recommend that you give this film an honest viewing (I think it is among the most significant works of the nineties), but it is not for all taste. The Winstar DVD is subpar, as usual. Fortunately the film is presented in widescreen format; however, the transfer is very dark and muddled. Nonetheless, if you were as captivated by this film as I was, you no doubt will be able to tolerate the mediocre presentation.
Real life, real-time, real boring 
2001-11-01 - Although the lead actress is very adept at displaying nuances and emotion, and is quite lovely to boot, you'll have to excuse me for watching this movie with my finger resting on the fast forward button. I mean, if you want to have the viewer reach out emotionally, watching her every move works to establish certain aspects of her personality. But by the fifth uncut, step by step shot down the hotel corridor the movie goes beyond establishing emotions to outright fixation. In the end, it becomes simply too frustrating to watch.
Plus the ending was lame.
