"Pleasure Party" is a character study where nearly all the characters lack depth, except one, and even he is not really worthy of a whole movie dedicated to him. Chabrol attempts to do the anatomy of a slowly disintegrating marriage, but he chooses to tell the story from the male perspective only; the woman seems to be the inferior half in both Chabrol's and his male lead's eyes. It certainly doesn't help that both leads are not played by professional actors: Paul Gegauff was primarily a writer (who sometimes collaborated with Chabrol), while his real-life ex-wife Daniele had never acted before, and although she's not bad, her inexperience is occasionally evident (example: the crying scene). The film has its visual and aural pleasures (lost of classical music on the soundtrack), but the story is unpleasant and largely pointless (since the male lead's behavior becomes so sociopathic that it would be unwise to draw any general conclusions from this tale). You get the feeling that Chabrol made this one basically to help the Gegauff couple exorcise some of their personal demons. ** out of 4.
Review of Pleasure Party
