This has to be one of the most completely realized comedies ever made, and, in its odd way, one of the most civilized.
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie(Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France · 1972
Rated PG · 1h 41m
Director Luis Buñuel
Starring Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Paul Frankeur, Bulle Ogier
Genre Comedy
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A group of bourgeoisie friends continuously attempt to dine together but are never able to. They are repeatedly prevented from being able to dine together and become more and more frustrated as their vices and fears become exposed.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Movies don't come more original, inventive, or outlandishly entertaining.
Philadelphia Inquirer by Desmond Ryan
A classic of subversive surrealism.
In the nearly 30 years since the movie was released (it won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1972), one forgets how falling-about-funny is this mad caper.
TV Guide Magazine by Frank Lovece
A brilliant surrealistic joke about a group of friends whose attempts to dine are continually thwarted.
One of the best titles in movie history and a cast to match.
Slly, sublime, buoyant mischief that is virtually without parallel in 20th-century art, much less 20th-century film.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Far from seeming dated, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie seems timelier than ever, downright prophetic, for that matter.
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
It seems pompous and scattershot now -- a tweaking of privileged European smugness that unfolds with a playful daisy-chain logic but has the tone of a quaint, doddering lecture.
San Francisco Examiner by Wesley Morris
If there's a granddaddy of breezy situationalism, it's probably Buñuel.
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