Film Forum

France, 1978
Directed by Claude Chabrol
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran, Jean Carmet
Approx. 124 min. 35mm print courtesy CNC

"VIOLETTE NOZIÈRE is based on the true story of a sweet young French girl, Violette Nozière, who, one evening in 1933, with malice aforethought, murdered her father just as he was sitting down to a roast beef dinner. Whether or not she also attempted to murder her mom was open for debate in the trial. Isabelle Huppert plays the beautiful Violette, whom Mr. Chabrol clearly regards as the quintessential bourgeois girl with her eye on the main chance. Her only problem, perhaps, is that she didn't aspire to greater things. Stéphane Audran and Jean Carmet appear as her prissy parents. VIOLETTE NOZIÈRE ranks with the best work of the director who also gave us LA FEMME INFIDELE, LE BOUCHER AND LES BICHES." – Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Read about the real-life Violette Nozière.

Reviews

"The riveting Huppert provides a brilliant portrait of inscrutable fatalism
behind an impenetrable mask."
– The Village Voice