Rating: 
Summary: This film is so tight!
Review: Sublime. To me, this stealthily thrilling film exploits both the living quality of a theatrical performance and the privileged intimacy that cinema offers -- close-ups, mobile perspectives, and so on. Rohmer's tale seems put together to resemble a peculiarly intrusive documentary, an impossibly close piece of observational cinema. Half the joy of experiencing his fiction stems from the convincing impression that one is (secretly) watching a group of interesting adults socializing spontaneously in the manner of their culture and class. The other half of one's pleasure lies in the awareness, as the film concludes, that an intricate and subtle structure has been unfolding and cleverly weaving the tale's elements together all along. Rohmer's film works on several levels, and is well worth viewing by the socially curious and the open-minded.
Rating: 
Summary: Horribly dated
Review: The plot of this film is simple enough. A man who is a Catholic sees a woman whom he decides to pursue. She is young attractive and blond. Nowdays he comes across as something of a stalker. Some time later he meets and old friend and they go to vist a woman called Maude. Maude is a single mother and she and the Catholic end up alone. She talks him into staying the night but the couple do not have sex. Thus the hero heads off to marry the blond. The end of the film is a chance meeting with Maude and the realisation that the blond had by chance been Maude's husbands mistress. In 1969 this would have been seen as a pretty sexy film. It relies on the tension of whether the hero and Maude will have sex or whether the vision of the blond will keep him from straying. The irony of course being that the blond was not that virtous herself. The film maker it would seem also is of the view that Maude is a more interesting or attractive women than the blond as she can talk. The problem with the film is that it is very much a static film which is filled with huge amounts of dialogue. The sexual tension between the characters is something which would have kept audiences interested in the late 60's. Now with the change that has occured in sexual morals you just hear the dialogue. The reality that the conversation is very very dull. The other problem is that all of the characters are drop kicks. The male is a person whom the audience is meant to identify with. Yet he does not say one thing that is amusing, interesting or even notworthy. He is a person who is attracted to women on a superficial basis, falling in love without speaking to the object of his love. Maude is okay but she goes on and on and on. She also appears to be attracted to the lead drop kick which is not easy to understand. This might have rated as an interesting movie in its time but its now dull dull dull.
Rating:
Summary: My Night With Rohmer
Review: There are few filmmakers whom I can say truly put me in a good mood and Rohmer is one of those filmmakers. What I love about Rohmer's films is the delicacy and the subtleness in them.
"My Night At Maud's" was the third film in Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales". And many see it not only as the best of the six, but, also as Rohmer's best film. And, they have a good case to give it that credit.
To those who are unaware of the story it goes something like this, and I'll try not to reveal any major plot-points.
A young man, Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is searching for the perfect mate. A woman who must share his religious beliefs, which are catholic, and his views of love. He has set quite a high standard for himself, considering it's the "modern world". Where religion doesn't really play a big part in most people lives or at least in the women whom he meets. That is until he meets a beautiful blond,Francoise (Marie-Christine Barrault) in of all places, church! He soon finds himself, along with a friend, Vidal (Antoine Vitez) spending the night at Maud's. A "modern" woman with "modern" views. These two seem to be as different as they come. She is not really what he's looking for and he is too "old-fashion" for her.
What happens afterwards is truly priceless. As Rohmer has made a film that is about as funny as a film could be dealing with sexual morals. It also has some of the "smartest" dialogue I've ever heard. If you've never seen a Rohmer film, this is a wonderful place to start. One of the best French films of all-time and one of the true "classics" in cinema.
"My Night At Maud's" was nominated for two Oscars; "Best Foreign Film" and "Best Screenplay". It was also hailed as the best film of the year in 1970 by the late Gene Siskel.
Rating:
Summary: Rohmer at His Best
Review: This is the fourth and best of Eric Rohmer's six moral tales. Like many of Rohmer's films, "My Night at Maud's" is about the search for a life-partner, temptation and fidelity. Also, like most Rohmer films, "My Night at Maud's" is made up mainly of conversation's, and some might find it "boring" or "just talking." But the conversations are interesting and intellectually stimulating, and, at the films end, the last piece of the puzzle falls into place.
An engineer (Jean-Louis Trintignant) becomes infatuated with a woman he sees in Church (Marie-Christine Barrault). But before he is able to ask her out, he spends the night at the apartment of Maud (Francoise Fabian) trying to be faithful to his Catholic values by resisting her attempts at seduction. (I won't spoil the film by telling you how his night with Maud ends.) He later meets, dates, and eventually marries the woman from Church. Years later, after running into Maud at the beach, he discovers that his wife has a connection to Maud. (Again, I won't spoil the film by telling you what it is.)
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