Rating: 
Summary: a unique film about love
Review: This is one of my favorite movies ever. It is very therapeutic to watch. There are many layers to this film...I've seen it a hundred times and each time I see something new. This film is really about love, and particularly women's search for love. It seems all the other characters in the film revolve around the main character Angele, to illustrate some point about love, men, and women, and relationships, and emotions. Angele is 40 years old and very unhappy. She feels that love is too painful to embrace it fully, for many reasons which are so complicated to mention...being sexually abused as a child, being orphaned at 8 years old by her parents' tragic deaths, and guilt over some action she has committed in the past are some of the reasons. Underneath everything I think this film is trying to express our longing to be truly, truly loved. Throughout the film we see examples of how men treat women as sex objects, (the two workers carrying the mirror, the guy who comes into the salon looking for the "finishing touches," and of course Angele's loser boyfriend from the first scene, also Angele's travel agent friend who found a record of her husband's affairs.) Women come into the salon seeking beauty treatments that will hopefully turn them into perfect creatures who can finally be loved, or to soothe their painful feelings. We can see that Angele feels so much pain, but gains so much comfort from being able to comfort others at the salon, but doesn't feel she deserves to take care of herself the same way. Angele is afraid to be in love, because from her own experiences, love only brings pain, not pleasure...as she says, she "opted out" of love, "love, jealousy, and pain...they're finished!" Until one day, someone comes out of nowhere and gives her the unconditional love she needs. He loves her when she is not dressed nicely for dinner, he loves her when she rejects him over and over, he loves her even though she's "screwed up," even when she tells him she slept with another guy he still loves her...and he really understands who she is. In the end, Angele is able to accept love again, but getting to that place is difficult. My favorite line from the film is, "Why always say the opposite of what you feel?" What a good question.
Rating: 
Summary: When you smile I find you handsome
Review: This isn't a bittersweet romance movie. Instead, it's a bittersweet romance-in-the-making. Nathalie Baye shines as the center of a trio of beauticians who struggle to find love. It lacks the warmth of a really dynamic look at love, but it is pretty and sometimes heartwarming.
Angèle (Nathalie Baye) is about forty, and works at a pink, perfumed beauty salon where women and men alike come for skin care, tans and massages. Because of a lover's scarred face, she has sworn off love. Now all she wants are flings and one-night stands, out of fear that her heart will be broken.
But one day she is dumped nastily, and a sculptor named Antoine (Samuel Le Bihan) sees everything. Despite being engaged, he falls in love with Angèle. But the love-wary Angèle pushes him away, and he pursues her even so, determined to break down her defenses and make her see how much he loves her.
Tonie Marshall does a fairly good job with a film that looks at love, beauty, and the bitterness that can keep potential love away. It's definitely a unique story, with a beautiful older woman finding love again, but without age jokes or painless romances. It has false starts, misunderstandings, awkwardness and mistakes -- like love.
Marshall's film does have some flaws, however. Jacques (Jacques Bonnaffe) is Angèle's ex, the guy who has some scarring on his face. They're not particularly bad scars, but the characters act as if he need to wear a half-mask and haunt the Paris Opera House. That superficiality seems reflected in the pretty, shallow look of the salon.
But the love stories are quite sweet, including two younger women, one a tough girl and one a sensitive sweetie. Though Angèle originally sees love as an enslavement, the movie doesn't see it that way. In here, love is an emotion that can change your life -- it's not enslavement, and it's not perfection. But it can bring happiness.
Baye does an excellent job as the embittered Angèle, whose fear of love comes from shooting her ex. She stays on the same level as the young women, who are expected to be single. Backing her up is the tough, depressed Samanthe (Mathilde Seigner), and the sweet naive Marie (Audrey Tautou), who is the mistress of a man old enough to be her dad.
Despite the picture of Tautou in the middle of the cover, this is Baye's movie. And despite the superficial, cold moments here and there, the bittersweet "Venus Beauty Institute" is worth checking out.
Rating: 
Summary: it's cute and funny... not too bad
Review: This movie is hilarious for one and second it is just a cute take on life of the women that frequent this beauty spa. It is a social critique on fashion and beauty in French society as well as others. It's a funny movie, a lot of humor and freshness. The plot can be slow and the characters lack dynamism.
The love story with the main character is a bit odd to follow and the ending is odd. You think at the end the finance will change the story's pace and outcome, but it's not that evil. It's defin entertaining despite it's lack of depth. It's humorous and worth the time for this cute french movie.
Rating:
Summary: Very pink
Review: This stars Nathalie Baye, not Audrey Tautou, of Amelie (2001) fame. (She has a supporting role.) Baye is Angele, a 40-year-old Parisian beautician who has loved and lost a few too many times. Indeed, as the film opens we (and Samuel Le Bihan as Antoine) watch and hear her being dumped once again. Well, she is careless with men. She is perhaps too "easy." She picks up men, the wrong ones. She is aggressive in her desire. And now she has become cynical. All she wants now are one-nights stands, no more love, no more unbreak my heart. Love is too painful.
So when Antoine falls in love with her at something like first sight (I do have a weakness for love at first sight: it is so, so daring, and so, shall we say, unpredictable) she rejects him out of hand even though he is a vital and handsome artist, confident and winning. What IS her problem? But he pursues her even though he is engaged to another (Helene Fillieres). And when she gets drunk and wants some casual sex with him, he says no. He wants her fully in control of her faculties.
So this is a romantic comedy of sorts centered around a beauty parlor. However any resemblance to Hollywood movies in the same genre (Shampoo (1975) and Hairspray (1988) somehow come to mind) is purely coincidental. Here the salon is brightly and colorfully lit with a tinker bell as the door opens, and the clientele are eclectic to say the least: an exhibitionist who arrives in a raincoat and nothing else; a rich old man lusting after Tautou; a woman with oozing pimples on her...(never mind)...etc.
What makes this work so well is a completely winning performance by Baye, sharp direction by Toni Marshall, and a kind of quirky and blunt realism that eschews all cliche. Tautou fans will be disappointed in her modest part, but she is just adorable in that role. The voyeur scene in which she is willingly seduced by the rich old guy may raise your libido or your envy depending on where you're coming from. Ha!
See this for Nathalie Baye who gives the performance of a lifetime, simultaneously subtle and strong, vulnerable and willful. She makes us identify with her character and she makes us wish her love.
Rating:
Summary: Leave it to the French...........
Review: Tonie Marshall's "The Venus Beauty Institute" could have only been made in France. It is a mature work that is silly, serious, sexy and ultimately sublime in its' treatment of love and relationships. In the film Nathalie Baye plays tough cookie Angele who uses one night stands to survive one lonely night after another. She is the agressor and wants nothing to do with Love. One of the great things about this film is that Angele cruises train stations and fast food joints (only in France does fast food mean lamb shank, baquettes and napoleons!) for sex and it is neither sleazy of pitiful! Just when you start to feel that you know what the story is ...along comes rough and tumble Antoine to upset the cart, both ours and Angele's. Much happens in this film and it's all sexy, racy and done as well as anything I've seen this year. American film makers should be forced to watch this movie. No on second thought...Americans don't have it in them to make films like this. Let's leave it to the French who do this kind of film so well. Viva La France!
Rating:
Summary: Leave it to the French...........
Review: Tonie Marshall's "The Venus Beauty Institute" could have only been made in France. It is a mature work that is silly, serious, sexy and ultimately sublime in its' treatment of love and relationships. In the film Nathalie Baye plays tough cookie Angele who uses one night stands to survive one lonely night after another. She is the agressor and wants nothing to do with Love. One of the great things about this film is that Angele cruises train stations and fast food joints (only in France does fast food mean lamb shank, baquettes and napoleons!) for sex and it is neither sleazy of pitiful! Just when you start to feel that you know what the story is ...along comes rough and tumble Antoine to upset the cart, both ours and Angele's. Much happens in this film and it's all sexy, racy and done as well as anything I've seen this year. American film makers should be forced to watch this movie. No on second thought...Americans don't have it in them to make films like this. Let's leave it to the French who do this kind of film so well. Viva La France!
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