Parents' Guide to

Madame Claude

By John Sooja, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 18+

Lots of nudity, sexual violence in long fictional biopic.

Movie NR 2021 112 minutes
Madame Claude Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

  • Madame Claude Movie: Scene 1
  • Madame Claude Movie: Scene 2
  • Madame Claude Movie: Scene 3

Community Reviews

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age 18+

Based on 3 parent reviews

huiuiuo
huiuiuo Adult
May 11, 2021
age 18+

Stupid!

Lots of nudity lots of violence has cursing drugs not for people under 21

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
1 person found this helpful.
darrown
darrown Adult
September 8, 2022
age 18+

Gritty, Realistic and Disturbing

First, this is entirely an adults-only movie, based on the true-life story of a French madame who recruited beautiful young women to pleasure and entertain wealthy and sometimes famous male clients for many years. By its nature, therefore, the plot contains explicit references to, and depictions of, the buying and selling of sexual services. It also explores the connection between Madame Claude and the French police, who used her girls to compromise foreign diplomats whose governments' interests were at odds with those of their host nation. Cold and calculating, we see Madame Claude in one scene asking a trusted male client to evaluate the "performances" of two recently recruited girls. She asks him about one of them: "Aren't her thighs a bit heavy?" Later in the movie Madame Claude admits to being "dead inside". In doing so she acknowledges the price paid for choices made. Moral of the movie in one phrase.
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What's the Story?

In MADAME CLAUDE, it's the 1960s and Fernande Grudet (Karole Rocher) runs a brothel for high end clientele. Her client list includes John F. Kennedy, Marlon Brando, and the shah of Iran. She works with organized crime, police, and others to protect her business and her employees. But as the world moves into the '70s, France is changing, and Madame Claude may be running out of friends.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (3):
Kids say: Not yet rated

This mature drama is a mixed bag. The first hour of this luxuriously-shot and deftly-acted movie is intoxicating. The problem is that the second hour of Madame Claude is boring, goes nowhere, and ultimately concludes the film unsatisfactorily. Indeed, if the film had reduced the number and length of all its languorous shots of skin, the runtime might have been quite tolerable. Further, while the film clearly presents a very sexist and unfair and violent toward women 1960s Paris, the attitude the film presents, using voice-over from Madame Claude (of the film), is that there's nothing women can do about it. Madame Claude is also about a powerful woman in this incredibly difficult and dangerous environment, but clearly the story has a bleak trajectory.

After all this set up, after all the players and pieces are added to the board, nothing happens. After all the intrigue around introducing her protege, Sidonie, or after all the drama around a lover of Claude's having an affair with one of her girls, or after all the drama around the police making Madame Claude use her "best" girls to trap dangerous men in the act of hurting women, nothing really happens. It's as if the film realizes that it has already gone on far too long, and thus, wraps itself up quickly. In a blink, Madame Claude is back with voiceover while a montage shows her leaving prison looking older and now with white hair. Her voiceover then explains what happened in the last decade. Then a quick text blurb about what happened to the real Madame Claude after her prison sentence and that's it. It's as if the film can't sustain itself, can't sustain all its glamorization, titillation, seduction, drama, and tension, and it all collapses under its own excitable weight. Madame Claude initially entices with powerful women leads, strong acting, and a high stakes plot, but only disappoints afterwards. It's like presenting the first part of a story really well, only to then follow with no rise, no primary conflict, no climax, and no satisfying resolution.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about sexual violence in dramas. Was the sexual violence in Madame Claude warranted? Was it represented well? While on one hand, there's an argument to portray the brutality of sexual violence realistically in order to adequately convey how brutal this kind of violence is, but on the other hand, the representation of sexual violence can become gratuitous and/or glorified. Where do you think this film lands?

  • Discuss the representation of sexism in film. How does this film represent the rampant and open sexism of 1960s Paris? Sometimes, it might be important to as accurately as possible convey how a society realistically was, even if that society was incredibly sexist, for example. But also sometimes, certain films seem perhaps a bit too eager to represent certain aspects of "older times." In other words, in your estimation, does this film end up feeling like an excuse for heteronormative male fantasy? Or does this film end up feeling like simply an accurate representation of a certain time period and place?

  • How did you find the ending? Was the conclusion to Madame Claude's story satisfactory? Why and why not?

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