Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
In occupied Paris, an actress wed to a Jewish theater owner must keep him hidden from the Nazis while doing both of their jobs.
Truffaut's The Last Metro is a richly layered wartime drama distinguished by its theatrical milieu and the way it uses the stage as a mirror for survival and deception under Nazi occupation. Catherine Deneuve delivers an exceptional, controlled performance as Marian, anchoring the film with rare emotional depth, while Depardieu brings magnetism and ambiguity to Bernard. The ensemble is uniformly strong. The film's novelty lies in its distinctive dual-world conceit — the hidden husband below the stage, the wife performing above — blending the artifice of theater with the deadly reality of the Occupation in a way that feels singular among wartime films. The cinematography by Néstor Almendros is accomplished and warm but not groundbreaking. The plot, while compelling, occasionally drifts in its middle passages, and the ending — while clever in its theatrical meta-commentary — feels slightly abrupt and more wry than fully satisfying emotionally, keeping it from true distinction.