Le Refuge: Press reviews

'Carré, who was herself pregnant during the shoot, excels as the defiant, rebellious but acutely sensitive mother-to-be.'

'entrancing and moving '

'Carré, who was pregnant at the time of the shoot, and Louis-Ronan Choisy, the novice actor who plays her gay companion, are excellent in what is possibly the quietest, most thoughtful film Ozon has made.'

'Carré, pregnant in real life, gives François Ozon's film a semi-documentary fascination, even if we never wholly buy her relationship with Poupaud's gay brother.'

'an incomplete pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless'

'slight but sensitive'

'Lyrical in style and presentation, this drama alludes to serious issues but does not address them. Enjoyable stylistically, but not substantiated beyond glossy advertisement.'

'I reckon I disbelieved it from the moment that pretty heroin addict Isabelle Carré comes back whistle-clean a few weeks after her boyfriend's death from an OD.'

'Considering that Carré herself was pregnant during the filming – no prosthetic bumps or body doubles required – it's odd how little François Ozon's latest diaphanous drama has to say about maternity, and how much it has to say about living rent-free in a big house near the beach.'

'The film's thrust is that some men are better equipped to cherish and care for babies than the women who bear them, a message Dr Seuss conveyed rather more entertainingly in his masterpiece, Horton Hatches the Egg.'