User Reviews

In Suzanne's Career, the 54-minute second film of Rohmer's group of Six Moral Tales, two friends, both students at a local university, vie for the affections of Suzanne (Catherine See). Guillame (Christian Charriere) is the more aggressive and the most manipulative but Bertrand (Phillipe Beuzen) goes along with his schemes and his character is not beyond blemish. Both scheme to have Suzanne pay for their good times and ignore her at parties to make her jealous while telling each other how they detest her.

There is a great deal of narration in the film and we are privy to Bertrand's thoughts and feelings as he sorts out for himself what is right and what is wrong. Suzanne is sweet but seemingly rather passive and easily exploited and we root for her to assert herself, and in typical Rohmer style we don't have to wait very long. This is a lovely film and, though it goes on a bit too long in pursuing its resolution, the ending is deliciously satisfying.

This is the second of the moral tales, but it's the last one I had left to see. I probably would have liked it better if I had seen it earlier as it covers a lot of the same areas as the later films but it's naturally less polished. It's clearly a very low budget film and the visuals are among Rohmer's most nondescript. Also, despite it's brevity it drags a bit in places. Still, in spite of these flaws it's a worthwhile addition to the Rohmer canon.

The film itself is about two male college students. Guillame is the leader here. He is also a real jerk, similar to the stereotypical frat boy today. This is the type of person who comes from a privileged background but is still quite ignorant in spite of his advantages. Since he is clearly lacking intelligence but seems affable enough, this type of guy gets treated well by people who don't realize that he has just enough cunning to take advantage of their kindness and screw them over. So naturally he uses and abuses everyone around him. This includes his pathetic, spineless sidekick, Bertrand, and their mutual love interest/dumping ground Suzanne. The film is narrated by Bertrand who is something of a non-entity.

Suzanne is a decent looking girl with a steady job but she doesn't have enough money to attend college full time. Because she is not beautiful and also because of the aforementioned lack of funds she allows herself to be used by Bertrand and Guillame. It's clear she cares more about them than they do about her and she ends up wasting her hard earned money on the boys.

The twist here is that eventually Suzanne gets tired of the boys and moves on to better things while they stay the same. Despite coming from a lower social standing she ends equal to them and thus exposes their aimless apathy. Of course, Suzanne is not perfect either. The film's title suggests that her goals from the beginning might have been different than they seemed.

This film by Eric Rohmer shows that the style for which he has become famous was developed at an early stage - a concentration on the relationships between young people performed by unknown actors in an almost documentary style. As usual with Rohmer the performances of the actors are variable and not much happens in terms of plot. Instead the film concentrates on the emotional development of its young subjects, with the central character a little wiser by the end. The scenes on central Paris in the early sixties mean that part of the film's appeal is as an historical document in the same way as Chabrol's "Les Bonnes Femmes" and Varda's "Cleo De 5 a 7".

Suzanne's Career, the second of Eric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales," is an intriguing little drama encircling the lives of three students: Bertrand, our slightly naïve narrator, Guillaume, a chauvinistic leech, and Suzanne, an easily manipulated, clingy girl whom they take advantage of. In comparison to The Girl at the Monceau Bakery (the first moral tale), Suzanne's Career is significantly darker, better acted, but somehow less effective. There's more meat here, but something gets lost in translation. It is still a good film, but it drags in places and sometimes becomes a little monotonous. If a viewer can get past that, though, the last fifteen minutes of the film is easily the best part of the entire movie.

At the beginning, we see Bertrand and Guillaume, two young college boys, having a conversation with Suzanne, a girl whom they've just met. Guillaume decides early on to use the girl, manipulate her emotions, exploit her in any way he can. And he does so effectively, for awhile. Guillaume flirts with other girls in Suzanne's presence, talks down to her, lives off of her money completely regretless. Throughout the whole thing, Bertrand stands by. He is torn between whether or not to go against his friend, who he looks up to, or to join him and manipulate the girl in order to benefit himself.

This is a fairly good film. It is longer than the first moral tale, but not quite feature length. The moral dilemma here, concerning fair and right treatment of women, is very interesting to watch unfold. It takes a little too long to get to where it's going, though. The middle drags on for longer than it needed to. There is no question that the two male characters are absolute pigs, but watching them act on their chauvinism gets a little old after awhile. However, good narration, an excellent plot, and a good statement about how people should be treated salvage this moral tale. Suzanne's Career is definitely worth the hour.

7/10

The MO is the same the usual suspects in place in Erich Rohmer's second of his six moral tales. Lifeless amateur actors, cinematic style sacrificed for literary interior monologues about blasé people leading unremarkable lives. Suzanne is basically a three character story told by Bertrand, a bit of a self righteous twerp who remains conflicted about his feelings for the innocent and gullible Susan and his relationship with the amoral Guillaume who exploits Susan. Both men have a low opinion of Susan who in part brings it on herself by allowing the men to use her for her money and in the case of the rakish Guillaume for sex as well.

More concerned with character than plot, Rohmer gives us healthy servings of pettiness, ego, condescension and denial served up by a self absorbed threesome blind to every one's view but their own. Less than an hour long (Rohmer time) the pace is still slow and the characters repetitious bad habits irritating but if one remains patient is rewarded with an ending rich in truth.

While the more polished, bigger budgeted and lengthier later tales such as Claire's Knee and Love in the Afternoon have a more professional patina about them Susann sans all these trappings is still told in the same Rohmer unique way.

The films of Erich Rohmer are an acquired taste. In Night Moves (75), a hard boiled private investigator played by Gene Hackman says viewing a Rohmer film is like watching paint dry. For twenty years I agreed with this assessment. I may still, but once dried and finished I now see a work of interesting art that is both challenging and pure.

Susanne is an interesting sketch but for those unfamiliar with Rohmer, I would recommend any of the last three of the six tales first for their accessibility. Watch one and if it doesn't agree with you, wait ten to twenty years and try again. In Rohmer's case patience is a necessity.

"Suzanne's Career" is a rather slow moving story about three friends. One is a bit of a Romeo and is focused on his current conquest, Suzanne. The other is a friend who narrates the film. His role is odd--he just hangs around the two and acts a bit like a chaperon--a chaperon who disappears when the pair want to sleep together. Eventually, the simple girl, Suzanne, turns out to be a bit more clever than either guy had expected and soon begins to make eyes at the chaperon. What is going on here? See the film yourself if you'd like to know.

Watching "Suzanne's Career" reminds me of a home movie--a very good home movie, but a home movie nonetheless. It appears to have been made using an 8mm camera, is quite grainy, have occasionally sloppy edits and has no titles or introduction. The camera also appears to have been hand-held at times and is, occasionally, a bit jerky. Because of all these factors and the non-professional style of the acting, it's not very easy to take this film seriously. The way I see it, it's a way for Eric Rohmer fans to see his early works in order to see how much he improved and evolved over the next few decades. And because of all this, it's NOT a movie for the casual viewer--more for the die-hard Rohmer fans. And, because I assume this was only made for Rohmer and his New Wave buddies, I really don't think it's possible to score this one.

By the way, twice in the film the line "Girls like to be forced" was repeated. How very progressive!!

This is the second of the moral tales. Rohmer is a bit of an acquired taste. For me, it's that the characters are often unlikeable or weak. In this one, Suzanne is a young woman, enamored with Gillaume, a self centered bad boy Jerk who uses his friends. She is continually mistreated by this guy, and, of course, goes back to him. Bertrand, the feckless other man, Gillaume's friend, is taken with Suzanne and has a seemingly hopeless, puppy-like relationship with her. She pays when they go out, draining her resources. But she is actually using him. What happens is inconsequential. Rohmer is practicing his craft, developing characters, playing them against each other, and keeping out of it. When people meet, they engage in boring conversations. They are so introspective that we wish something would happen, but nothing really does. Just look at these people and enjoy the mastery of a director who knows how to make them real.

This is the second film in French director Eric Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" film series. I'm watching the films in order, and so far I've only gotten to the first two ("The Bakery Girl of Monceau" and this one), and, out of those two films, this one is probably the most bland.

Trust me, there's plenty of positive things to be said about "Suzanne's Career". There's some pretty good characters, a nice love story, and some really interesting and artistic filmmaking/storytelling techniques. However, the film is, overall, kind of bland and, at times, even quite boring! For an only 55 minute film, it went by pretty slow, even if there were quite a few neat things about it along the way.

Overall, the film is recommended if you're planning on watching all six of the "Six Moral Tales" film series. Otherwise, there's no real reason to watch this unless you're a big fan of French/romantic cinema.

The French film La carrière de Suzanne(1963) was shown in the U.S. with the translated title Suzanne's Career. It was written and directed by Éric Rohmer. It's the second of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales.

The movie is about four young adults acting like adolescents. They pair up, break up, and come back together again. They talk, talk, talk, mostly about each other.

The two men are Philippe Beuzen as Bertrand and Christian Charrière as Guillaume. The two women are Catherine Sée as Suzanne and Diane Wilkinson as Sophie. It's interesting to me that none of the four had a successful film career following this movie.

This film has a borderline IMDb rating of 7.0. I didn't think it was that good and rated it 6. My thought is that the only reason to see this film is to complete your viewing of Rohmer's Six Moral Tales.

Suzanne's Career is a really interesting moral story from Rohmer but it fails to amuse me, there is a lot to like but it's badly paced movie. There are some interesting ideas but they aren't utilized unlike in his other movies...

"Suzanne's Career" is the second of Eric Rohmer's "six moral tales". It concerns a young man, Guillaume, whose purpose in life is using women. If they have money he can filch, so much the better. The story is narrated by Bertrand, Guillaume's friend. In the first scene, the couple meet Suzanne, a young student who falls in with them and gets the usual treatment by Guillaume.

Bertrand, like everyone in the story, knows that Guillaume is a thief without redeeming attributes, and so do we, so what is the moral question posed by this film?

I can forgive the voice-overs, as Rohmer is trying to bring us into the internal thought processes of Bertrand. But I found the film to be choppy and amateurish. The biggest question posed by the film is why Bertrand would choose Guillaume as a friend.

Although I have not seen all of Rohmer's moral tales, at least some of the later ones are more polished and have a more interesting point of view.

The second entry in Éric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales focuses on gender relations. The titular character is a delicate girl homed in on by a pair of men amid turmoil in French society caused by the Algerian War. "La carrière de Suzanne" ("Suzanne's Career" in English) is slow-moving, but that's probably appropriate, considering what sort of movie it is.

I did like "The Bakery Girl of Monceau" better, just since it seems like that one had more substance. I don't know if Rohmer had a specific style, so I can't judge this one against most of his movies. I can say that it offers solid criticism of the era's gender relations. It's not the most important movie ever, but still worth seeing (certainly more so than the latest movie where Tom Cruise narrowly escapes all danger).

There are some interesting IMDb reviews offering quality observations about this film, but the handful that critique it as a tad bland and unsatisfying are spot on. This is the only Rohmer film I've seen as I write this, and I'll be watching The Collector next, thanks to Turner Classic Movies. I'm hoping they air the rest of the Rohmer series, as I'd like to absorb it as a body of work rather than as a string of tales.

To say this film is drenched in dialogued is an understatement. We are afforded minimal breaks from voice-over narration and often pointless conversations. It bogs down the wonderful flow of the film.

I will gladly praise its structure, its appropriate use of close-ups, and even the acting. Its clear the director had a special talent. Those facts, for me, bump it from a very average 5 to a 6.

I agree this is mostly for Rohmer fans only, and I hope I will get to find out if I truly am one.

Flat, listless and trés, trés boring. The lifeless direction and script doesn't help.