“Rosmary’s Baby,” “Dance of the Vampires,” “Chinatown” and many more: Roman Polanski’s filmography is full of gems that almost anyone interested in movies has probably seen. His latest work ‘The Palace’, which premiered at the 2023 Venice Film Festival and has not been shown elsewhere, disappointed the critics.
Take a quick look at the review collection page RottenTomatoes.com is enough to reveal what film journalists think of “The Palace” so far: not exactly much! Currently the share of positive reviews here is 0%! This means that none of the 14 reviews found there so far are positive. And even speak of Polanski’s “worst film”.
The 0% doesn’t mean much
So far, the comedy with stars like Mickey Rourke (“The Wrestler”), Oliver Masucci (“The Swarm”) and Fanny Ardant (“Young at Heart”) has not been particularly well received. Of course, you have to keep in mind that the film was only shown in Venice, 14 reviews is not a lot and more will appear on the platform in the coming weeks – and so the score will also change. However, “The Palace” doesn’t even have a theatrical release date in the US, France and Great Britain, as a distributor has not yet been found in those countries. Roman Polanski’s new film will hit theaters here on January 18, 2024.
By the way: we only give “The Palace” a mediocre two out of five stars. So we can certainly understand that the current press response to Polanski’s latest film is rather poor. Editor-in-chief Christoph Petersen’s conclusion in the official FILMSTARTS review is as follows: “The prevailing old-fashioned humor in ‘The Palace’ would have been hopelessly outdated even on New Year’s Eve 2000.”
That’s what “The Palace” is about
The turn of the millennium is approaching and preparations are in full swing at the luxury hotel The Palace in the Swiss Alps. Everything has to be perfect, after all, top guests from all over the world come to celebrate the night of nights in the elegant establishment. Hotel director Hansueli (Oliver Masucci) has his hands full and prepares his staff for the eccentric visitors who have a lot of money in their pockets.
Porn stars, bankers and billionaires are among the guests, and they all have special requests that pose major challenges for Hansueli. And then there’s star investor Bill Brush (Mickey Rourke), who hopes for computer chaos at the turn of the millennium and plans a million-dollar fraud…