The Mother and the Whore

Released Mar 25, 1974

3h 30m

Drama

List

94%

32 Reviews

Tomatometer

91%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

In this sexually frank French drama, the aimless young Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud) juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie (Bernadette Lafont), and a casual lover named Veronika (Françoise Lebrun). The dialogue-heavy film focuses intently on the love triangle, with Marie increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika. As the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

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Critics Consensus

The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la putain) finds writer-director Jean Eustache working at peak form to deliver a gripping statement on late 1960s French society.

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Audience Member

Fortunate that there's a great version with good English subs on YouTube. It's almost four hours of the most French thing ever put to film and it's pretty glorious not just in spite of but because of its absurdity. Tres bien.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/28/23

Full Review

William L

It has the faces of the French New Wave, and some substance for them to chew on, but I don't think this late entry in the movement deserves to be considered among the best. Radical in its "immoral" exploration of a rapidly changing culture, particularly its treatment of sexuality, La Maman et la Putain is still three and a half hours of a pseudointellectual bum trying to get laid with two different women; it's in black and white, is exceptionally dialogue-heavy, and has an avowed dedication to tedium. Its treatment of romance, full of flowery language and unprompted speeches, discussion of societal ills, and a range of partners feels painfully, almost stereotypically French. For the first hour or so (before the characters begin to have greater weight than a helium balloon), the film feels like a pretentious mess. Gradually, a greater value in its take on this dynamic period in 20th century French culture comes to be revealed, particularly in its sincere treatment of the feminine perspective and the lampooning of Léaud's archetypical Alexandre and Lebrun's extraordinary final tirade (the latter of which singlehandedly elevates the film), but the unnecessarily unwieldy length and lack of surface-level engagement renders it unlikely to lend itself to frequent repeat viewings. More like a "I've checked that box, at least"-type film. (3.5/5)

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

12/22/20

Full Review

Audience Member

I will never forget the night I saw this film. I was that rare evening at the movies that was as transforming as a great night of theater. The film was presented with an intermission, which allowed me to eavesdrop on many conversations, mostly of outrage and disbelief that a movie could be like this. French films at the time were generally considered to be too talky; this was the talkiest I had ever seen. Aggressively, played out in real time and utterly compelling. I have gone back twice over the next 40 years, always frightened that the people I had insisted come with me would think me crazy for loving it, but it has always repaid me in the way that great art is new with every encounter.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

andrey k

While I don't sympathize with the characters of the movie and its thematic filling, I do appreciate it as a cross-section of the French society of the late 60's with its confused young men and women who had lost any beacon to lead their lives due to a numerous number of sexual etc. revolutions. Their seemingly philosophical subtext in their conversations is pretty shallow and is solely based on frustration.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Even if Eustache's romantic side takes the lead in the end and reduces a bit its power, this is a vibrant film that pulses with a youthful verve and feels so alive even in its imperfections, and it feels nearly impossible not to fall in love with Léaud's adorably annoying character/persona.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

Audience Member

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Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

Full Review

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Jean Eustache

Director

Bernadette Lafont

Marie

Jean-Pierre Léaud

Alexandre

Françoise Lebrun

Veronika

Isabelle Weingarten

Gilberte

Jacques Renard

Alexandre's Friend

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Pauline Kael

New Yorker

The film is designed to be a religious experience, but the musty answer it offers to the perils of sexual freedom is actually a denial of sexual freedom.

Sep 21, 2023

Full Review

Jake Cole

Slant Magazine

Jean Eustache obliquely puts on trail the self-reflexive cool of the early New Wave films.

Rated: 4/4

Jun 18, 2023

Full Review

Richard Brody

New Yorker

Eustache, in his tender and passionate depiction of their romantic roundelay, delivers nothing less than a comprehensive vision of France's post-1968 revolution-and it's a ferociously conservative view.

Mar 27, 2017

Full Review

Diego Batlle

Otroscines.com

It is a modern, anticipatory, influential film like few others, full of nuance and contradictions (in its own way it is revolutionary and conservative, playful and painful) and something like a generational portrait... [Full review in Spanish]

Rated: 5/5

Nov 22, 2023

Full Review

Steve Erickson

Arts Fuse

Breaks the bonds of what a feature-length film is expected to do. As downbeat as it is, the film also laid out a path for personal, if not autobiographical, cinema that Mia Hansen-Løve, Philippe Garrel, Ira Sachs, and Arnaud Desplechin have all extended.

Sep 8, 2023

Full Review

Sean Burns

WBUR’s Arts & Culture

A fitting epitaph for the French New Wave. It’s about children of the revolution adrift without a cause and emotionally ill-equipped for new freedoms they have no idea what to do with.

Sep 5, 2023

Full Review

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Synopsis

In this sexually frank French drama, the aimless young Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Léaud) juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie (Bernadette Lafont), and a casual lover named Veronika (Françoise Lebrun). The dialogue-heavy film focuses intently on the love triangle, with Marie increasingly jealous of Alexandre's fling with Veronika. As the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.

Director: Jean Eustache
Screenwriter: Jean Eustache
Production Co: Elite Films
Genre: Drama
Original Language: French (France)
Release Date (Theaters): Mar 25, 1974, Limited
Box Office (Gross USA): $38.8K
Runtime: 3h 30m
Sound Mix: Mono
Aspect Ratio: 35mm

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