Belgium, Ireland · 2015
1h 48m
Director Mary McGuckian
Starring Orla Brady, Vincent Perez, Francesco Scianna, Alanis Morissette
Genre Drama
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Irish architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray (1878–1976) was a leading light in the modern design movement. This graceful portrayal of her later life and work in France focusses on the triangle of tension between Gray (Orla Brady), her lover Badovici (Francesco Scianna) and Le Corbusier (Vincent Perez). Alanis Morrissette also features as chanteuse Marisa Damia, Gray’s other lover, with Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen, Amélie) as artist Fernand Léger.
It’s filled with risible dialogue, a visual style more suited to a Côte d’Azur fashion video (the slow motion, the tasteful, slightly obscured sex scenes), and plastered with an undistinguished score by Brian Byrne (“Albert Nobbs”).
The Irish Times by Donald Clarke
A well-meaning, but dramatically inert biopic.
The Guardian by Leslie Felperin
Somehow the tacky piano score amplifies the ineptitude of Mary McGuckian’s direction, but even so one can’t fail to be impressed by a scene where Brady’s Gray literally dances about architecture, proving that it really is possible.
RogerEbert.com by Matt Fagerholm
I came to McGuckian’s film knowing nothing about Gray and left feeling frustrated that I hadn’t learned more about her, apart from the boorish chauvinists in her life.
The Price of Desire is an indulgent, gauzy dream from memory, of Gray swanning around white rooms in white dresses uttering profundities in English and French — with white subtitles. It’s as visually inane, austere and pretentious as its dialogue.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
The performances here are bloodless, the pacing listless, the dialogue witless almost to the point of deadpan parody.
Friendship overcomes any obstacle.