Metacritic reviews

Like nearly any thriller, no matter how intelligently and tightly plotted, it is possible to poke holes in its fabric. But, as it's unspooling in the theater, it makes for a wonderful movie house experience. Here's a sleeper worth a few extra miles' travel to see.

Slyly exploiting audience expectations and prejudices, Lelouch calls into question our very ways of seeing, even as he and his longtime writing partner, Pierre Uytterhoeven, craft an elegant meditation on loss and rebirth.

The result is infectiously enjoyable.

Roman de Gare translates as "station novel," a book you might pick up to read on a train journey and then discard when you arrive at your destination. Lelouch's film is the cinematic equivalent, enjoyable fluff that your mind will discard after the closing credits - but worth seeing nevertheless.

The air of mystery here is appealing, because the secrets behind it seem to matter both a great deal and not at all--rather like love, which has been Lelouch’s subject ever since he made "A Man and a Woman."

Picture gets an undeniable boost from the ace performance of the short, beady-eyed Pinon.

This goofy tale of self-emancipation, a love story made by a mature man wise to the possibilities of the improbable, is also a thriller with an unexpectedly dark edge.

A thriller, a murder mystery and a somewhat self-conscious literary puzzle. All of that is entertaining enough, if a bit preposterous and overdone, but the twists and convolutions of the film’s beginning and end enable a middle that is dizzying domestic comedy.

Roman De Gare's neatest trick is Pinon's performance, which draws out a hitherto unseen leading-man allure.

The story's Hitchcockian plot loses steam quickly, though Pinon's salty presence keeps things from getting totally bloodless.