Masks (1987 film)

Talent show host Christian Legagneur hires a young reporter, Roland Wolf, to write his biography. However, Wolf has ulterior motives - he is also investigating his sister's disappearance.

• Philippe Noiret as Christian Legagneur
• Robin Renucci as Roland Wolf
• Bernadette Lafont as Patricia, La masseuse / The masseuse
• Monique Chaumette as Colette, la secrétaire / The secretary
• Anne Brochet as Catherine
• Roger Dumas as Manu
• Pierre-François Dumeniaud as Max
• Pierre Nougaro as Gustave
• Renée Dennsy as Émilie
• Yvonne Décade as Antoinette
• Blanche Ariel as Rosette
• René Marjac as Maurice
• Paul Vally as Henry
• Denise Pezzani as Mme Lemonier

The film received mixed reviews. Time Out said "Chabrol frames the verbal sparring with characteristic precision, but the subtle plot suffers from a surfeit of politesse and a dearth of red-blooded passion."[2] The New York Times called it "something practically unheard of in the vast Chabrol filmography: a thriller that satisfies the audience's expectations of a thriller, even including the childlike hope that good will be rewarded and evil punished", and added "although the suspense is skillfully engineered, you can't help feeling Mr. Chabrol's boredom with it."[3] Jonathan Rosenbaum said it was "good, serviceable, quasi-Hitchcockian fun", but not especially memorable.[4] Craig Williams on the BFI site was more positive: "The idea of the bourgeois mask concealing murderous impulses is prevalent throughout the director’s work, but there’s a streak of self-awareness in Masques... that marks this as one of his best films of the 80s."[5]

• Masks at IMDb