Based on a True Story(D'après une histoire vraie)

IndieWire by

A stylish but ultimately stiff collection of old tropes about writers and their audience, fiction vs. reality, and the Other that becomes you.

The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young

There are multiple levels on which to enjoy Roman Polanski’s Based on a True Story (D’Apres une histoire vraie), none of them very deep or complicated. But together they raise the resonance of a masterfully made psychological thriller in the traditional mode.

The Film Stage by Giovanni Marchini Camia

Polanski sleepwalks his way through the film, manifesting precious little of the skill and invention that fueled the slow-burn suspense and sinister atmospheres of superficially similar works such as Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion.

Screen International by Jonathan Romney

Polanski and the supremely genre-savvy Assayas know exactly what they’re doing, and whenever you think you’ve seen it all before, you realise they’re actually doing something else entirely – the film is an expertly navigated maze of misdirection.

The Playlist by Nikola Grozdanovic

It’s one of the director’s worst films, if not the worst.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

This is a movie which begins with confidence and style, wearing its influences pretty insouciantly; the film sashays about the screen with a kind of sexy-chic smirk, like the unvarying facial expression of its co-lead Eva Green. But it wobbles at the brink of plot-holes which undermine the vital realistic plausibility of a film like this.

Variety by Peter Debruge

Although the screenplay contains all the beats needed to generate tension, Assayas’ gift for conveying information between the lines is almost entirely lost on Polanski, who doesn’t give his actresses the opportunity to flesh out the subtext of their most awkward interactions.

The Telegraph by Robbie Collin

Nothing in this feeble psychological thriller rings true for a moment, though its unhinged machinations feel as pedestrian as soap opera in execution.