Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- awkward
- melancholic
- sardonic
- arthouse film night
- french cinema marathon
What critics said
Critics broadly regard the film as an absorbing, challenging, naturally performed French relationship drama whose potentially melodramatic material is handled with unusual realism.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Nelly leaves a steady bourgeois relationship and social circle, while the film mocks prosperity as an inadequate answer to social and sexual dissatisfaction.
Nelly's attachment to the unemployed Loulou is driven by sexual and personal fascination rather than a conventional romantic ideal, with no easy moral resolution.
Despite adultery, burglary, and sexual conflict, Pialat avoids soap-opera effects and observes the characters with awkward, absorbing naturalism.
Nelly's rejection of bourgeois respectability and embrace of Loulou turns sexual and domestic life into a critique of prosperity and convention.
Films like Loulou, and why
La maman et la putain
naturalistic french relationship drama examining bourgeois alienation, sexual freedom, and unstable desire
Une femme est une femme
emotionally abrasive french domestic drama built from awkward intimacy, infidelity, and anti-melodramatic realism
The Unfaithful Wife
socially observant relationship drama about class tension, erotic attachment, and dissatisfaction with bourgeois life
Movie Details
- Director
- Maurice Pialat
- Release Date
- 1980-09-03
- Runtime
- 106 min
- Rating
- 6.2 / 10 (113)
Cast
- Isabelle Huppert
- Gérard Depardieu
- Guy Marchand
- Humbert Balsan
- Christian Boucher
- Bernard Tronczak
- Frédérique Cerbonnet
- Jacqueline Dufranne
- Willy Safar
- Agnès Rosier
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Cohen Media Amazon Channel
- Rent
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube
- Buy
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is Loulou about?
- A bourgeois woman’s escape into a volatile affair with an unemployed charmer becomes Maurice Pialat’s unsentimental study of desire, class, and freedom.
- What is Loulou like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Loulou as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is Loulou violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in Loulou as mild.
- What did critics think of Loulou?
- Critics broadly regard the film as an absorbing, challenging, naturally performed French relationship drama whose potentially melodramatic material is handled with unusual realism.
- Which films are like Loulou?
- Films with a similar feel include La maman et la putain, Une femme est une femme, and The Unfaithful Wife.
- How long is Loulou?
- Loulou runs 106 minutes.
- Where can I watch Loulou?
- In United States, Loulou streams on Cohen Media Amazon Channel.
