RogerEbert.com by Glenn Kenny

Taking on a novel that’s already been adapted by two of the greatest filmmakers of all time should give any contemporary director pause, you would think. But Benoît Jacquot shows no signs of intimidation in his Diary of a Chambermaid.

Observer by Rex Reed

Diary of a Chambermaid doesn’t quite add up to the chronicle of decadent abuse endured by the servant class in turn of the century France that it hopes to be, but it’s still worth seeing as another entry in the rise of Léa Seydoux, a star of Gallic charisma if ever I’ve seen one.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

It’s a strength, not a weakness, of Jacquot’s that he makes movies about people. The ideas can take care of themselves.

Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen

The lack of ambiguity reflects Benoît Jacquot's treatment of the text, which is devoid of either formal obsessiveness or a contemporary hook.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

Ms. Seydoux’s triumph is her skill at imbuing Célestine with an almost angelic radiance that clashes with her underlying coarseness.

Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden

Unfolding elliptically, the new film can feel abrupt and unsatisfying, but it’s filled with sharp commentary on class and servitude, and the actress delivers another extraordinary performance.

CineVue

Diary of a Chambermaid is beautifully shot and Jacquot's adaptation, co-scripted with Helene Zimmer, effectively conveys the casual violence of country life as well as the petty obsessions and miserliness of the bourgeoisie and the harsh treatment of their servants. The performances are also superb and Seydoux's stillness and quiet hauteur is particularly memorable.

CineVue by Lucy Popescu

Diary of a Chambermaid is beautifully shot and Jacquot's adaptation, co-scripted with Helene Zimmer, effectively conveys the casual violence of country life as well as the petty obsessions and miserliness of the bourgeoisie and the harsh treatment of their servants. The performances are also superb and Seydoux's stillness and quiet hauteur is particularly memorable.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

Léa Seydoux, in all her haughty and sullen sexiness, dominates this well-crafted piece of suspenseful if curiously pointless hokum from French director Benoît Jacquot; it leads its audience up an elegantly tended garden path to nowhere in particular.

The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

In spurts, it resembles an homage to classic French cinema and an overheated, Tinto Brass-esque Euro skin flick, but still finds plenty of room for stultifying, upstairs-downstairs costume drama.

Village Voice by Melissa Anderson

Star Léa Seydoux — in her second collaboration with Jacquot (the first being 2012's Farewell, My Queen, in which she plays an adoring reader to Marie Antoinette) — further demonstrates, with each sly, gap-toothed grin, a keen understanding of power and impotence.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

Benoît Jacquot’s The Diary of a Chambermaid is a gorgeously mounted and dramatically inert bit of fluff that drapes itself over a smoldering Léa Seydoux but never manages to catch fire.

Variety by Guy Lodge

The film milks some brisk comedy from its upstairs-downstairs peekaboo, but is too breezy to convince in its depiction of obsessive erotic fixation — making for a “Diary” that oddly feels less exposing as it goes along.

The Hollywood Reporter by Jordan Mintzer

If Chambermaid lacks the dramatic push to carry it through to the end, Seydoux’s performance remains robust and engaging throughout.

The Playlist by Jessica Kiang

Where Jacquot largely knows what he's doing on a micro-level within individual scenes, and the sets and costuming are pretty special, he seems unable to assemble the parts into a coherent, consistent whole. So the film meanders and hiccups.