French Exit (2021)

French Exit is the kind of dark comedy-drama that feels like a perfectly cut gemstone: elegant, chilly, and glittering with wicked humor, anchored by one of Michelle Pfeiffer’s most deliciously controlled performances. As Frances Price, she turns every withering line into a small act of theater, yet lets just enough bruised humanity show through to make you lean in rather than pull away. Azazel Jacobs directs with airy Parisian style and precise timing, surrounding Frances, her adrift son, and a possibly-possessed cat with eccentrics who make the film feel like a mordant drawing-room farce drifting toward something more tender and sad. It’s not for viewers who want big laughs or easy warmth—the movie’s bite is real and its subject matter turns serious—but if you enjoy dry wit, impeccable tone, and character-driven storytelling that lingers, this is a sly, satisfying treat.

French Exit is aiming for a chic, deadpan tragicomedy about a woman treating financial ruin like a final performance, with a touch of magical-realist oddity via the possibly-possessed cat. When it works, Michelle Pfeiffer’s icy wit and the Parisian mood give it a tart, stylish charm. But the film can feel self-consciously quirky and emotionally arm’s-length, with pacing that drifts and characters that register more as curated eccentrics than people you’re meant to truly connect with. If you like arch humor, mannered dialogue, and melancholy that stays cool to the touch, you’ll be fine; if you want warmth, catharsis, or a grounded drama about grief and survival, this may leave you admiring it more than feeling it.