MUTED PRAISE AT CANNES FOR POLANSKI'S VENUS IN FUR

It's his second consecutive theatrical adaptation, after Carnage (which was shite), and Venus in Fur is drawing better reviews than that film at Cannes. Starring Emmanuelle Seigner (Polanski's wife) and Mathieu Amalric, and no-one else, critics are a little bothered by the film's theatricality, but generally positive otherwise.

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian isn't the only one to consider the film's sexual politics dated, but his three star review (out of five) is fairly agreeable towards Polanski and his actors. He also enjoys the finale, something which he shares in common with Fionnuala Halligan on the Screen Daily Blog; she thinks it 'a much finer, deeper work' than Carnage, and has good things to say about Seigner. Seigner is also mentioned in tweets from Guy Lodge and Jordan Hoffman, and Peter Howell joins those two in his sentiment about the film, neither raving nor ranting on it.