Huge-spirited and sharp-eyed, Renoir’s French-society fresco gathers high classes and low for a weekend of country-house fallout
Denigrated by the public, vilified by the critics, re-cut at the insistence of its producers, and finally banned by the French government as demoralising and unpatriotic, La Règle du jeu was a commercial disaster at the time of its original release.
On the surface a series of interlinked romantic intrigues taking place at a weekend shooting party in a country chateau, the film is in fact a study of corruption and decay within French society on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. Its reputation firmly restored, Jean Renoir's brilliant comedy is now widely recognized as one of the greatest films ever made
