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Elena and Her Men

The Only Thing Gayer Than April in Paris is Bergman in Paris!

1956 · 1h 35m · NOT RATED Comedy, Drama, Romance
Directed by Jean Renoir

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Overview

Set amid the military maneuvers and Quatorze Juillet carnivals of turn-of-the-century France, Jean Renoir’s delirious romantic comedy Elena and her Men stars a radiant Ingrid Bergman as a beautiful, but impoverished, Polish princess who drives men of all stations to fits of desperate love. When Elena elicits the fascination of a famous general, she finds herself at the center of romantic machinations and political scheming, with the hearts of several men—as well as the future of France—in her hands.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
77%
Tomatometer
Rotten

The fact that Jean Renoir was its director is the ultimate oddity. How this fiasco could have happened is difficult to explain.

Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Rotten

Bergman's signature elegance remains the only enduring element of Renoir's light-hearted confection.

Scott Tobias, AV Club
Fresh

What's interesting is the way that Renoir preserves a strong erotic and romantic thread (the love between Bergman and Ferrer) all the way through the movie's farcical elements.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Fresh

The film is ravishing to look at (with Ingrid Bergman radiant at its center), and its mid-80s 35-millimeter restoration is a sumptuous treat indeed.

Pat Graham, Chicago Reader
Fresh

Fantasy, yes, but hardly escapist in the astonishing pertinence with which it reduces the hawkish military and political ambitions of the day to derisory farce while demonstrating the infallibility with which love goes on making the world go round.

Time Out

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