# Too Beautiful for You
**Too Beautiful for You** (*Trop belle pour toi*) is a 1989 French comedy-drama written and directed by Bertrand Blier, in which a wealthy car dealer married to a strikingly beautiful woman falls in love with his plain temporary secretary. It stars [Gérard Depardieu](https://www.edgepedia.org/gerard-depardieu), Josiane Balasko, and [Carole Bouquet](https://www.edgepedia.org/carole-bouquet), and it shared the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival before winning five [César Awards](https://www.edgepedia.org/cesar-awards) in 1990, including Best Film.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/trop-belle-pour-toi/) • [2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/retrospective/1989/palmares/) • [3](https://www.academie-cinema.org/films/trop-belle-pour-toi/-32177/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *Trop belle pour toi*; English release title Too Beautiful for You[4](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/trop-belle-pour-toi-27543/) |
| Director and writer | Bertrand Blier, who wrote the screenplay and dialogues[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/trop-belle-pour-toi/) |
| Lead cast | Gérard Depardieu (Bernard), Josiane Balasko (Colette), Carole Bouquet (Florence), with François Cluzet and Roland Blanche[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/trop-belle-pour-toi/) |
| Release | 12 May 1989 in France; CNC exhibition visa no. 68763 dated 11 May 1989; runtime about 91–92 minutes[5](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D4735.html) • [6](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/68763) |
| Cannes 1989 | Grand Prix Spécial du Jury, ex aequo with *Cinema Paradiso*; also nominated for the Palme d'Or[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/retrospective/1989/palmares/) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098520/awards/) |
| César Awards 1990 | Five wins from eleven nominations: Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress (Carole Bouquet), Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation, and Best Editing[3](https://www.academie-cinema.org/films/trop-belle-pour-toi/-32177/) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Philippe Rousselot, editing Claudine Merlin, music Francis Lai and Franz Schubert, production design Théobald Meurisse[8](https://splendor-films.com/component/flexicontent/download/2416/761/46) • [1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/trop-belle-pour-toi/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Bernard Barthélémy (Depardieu) runs a car dealership and is married to Florence (Bouquet), a woman of exceptional beauty whom his male acquaintances openly envy. When Colette Chevassu (Balasko), a temporary secretary whom he finds not pretty but "nice", joins the office, a single exchanged glance sets off an attraction he cannot explain or resist.[9](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/trop-belle-pour-toi-1988) • [10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/too-beautiful-for-you-1990)
The affair overturns the couple's orderly life. Bernard becomes so agitated that he can no longer bear the Schubert music his son plays at home, a running gag that supplies the film's climactic punchline. Florence discovers the liaison, meets Colette, and at one point suggests reversing the roles, that she become the mistress and Colette the wife, a possibility the film briefly follows. Bernard and Colette spend days together in the countryside near Béziers, where, as Colette has foreseen, their passion peaks and then burns out. Florence announces she will leave him, and Bernard is left unable to choose between the two women or to listen to Schubert.[9](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/trop-belle-pour-toi-1988) • [11](https://www.deseret.com/1990/7/3/20088859/film-review-too-beautiful-for-you/)
## Style
Blier takes one of the oldest premises in fiction, the married man's affair, and inverts its expected casting: the wife is the one whose beauty is beyond question, the mistress the one whom convention would overlook. The film's subject is the irrationality of desire, which Bernard cannot justify to himself or anyone else.[12](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/obituaries/article/2025/01/21/the-death-of-bertrand-blier-french-director-and-screenwriter-who-wrote-going-places_6737258_15.html) • [13](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/46208.html)
**Narrative construction.** Rather than telling the story straight, Blier deconstructs it. Characters address the camera directly, interior monologues become full scenes, flashbacks and flash-forwards interleave, and fantasy sequences imagine adulterers' fears made real, including a dinner party at which Florence tells her friends that she has always been hated for being too beautiful. The Cinémathèque française describes the result as a dream logic of slippages, ellipses, and incongruous match cuts that nevertheless keeps a musical fluidity.[10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/too-beautiful-for-you-1990) • [13](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/46208.html) • [11](https://www.deseret.com/1990/7/3/20088859/film-review-too-beautiful-for-you/)
Blier himself framed the film as a departure in method: "With *Trop belle pour toi*, it is the first time I worked on the essence of cinema, on rough material; a film not based on dialogues but on physical sensations."[14](https://www.premiersplans.org/storage/medias/archives/documents/catalogues/2015-catalogue.pdf) Schubert's music runs through the film alongside Francis Lai's score, and the son's piano practice becomes the gauge of Bernard's disintegrating composure.[8](https://splendor-films.com/component/flexicontent/download/2416/761/46) • [11](https://www.deseret.com/1990/7/3/20088859/film-review-too-beautiful-for-you/)
## Awards
At the 1989 Cannes Film Festival the film competed for the [Palme d'Or](https://www.edgepedia.org/palme-dor) and won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury, shared with [Giuseppe Tornatore](https://www.edgepedia.org/giuseppe-tornatore)'s *Cinema Paradiso*; the Palme d'Or that year went to [Steven Soderbergh](https://www.edgepedia.org/steven-soderbergh)'s *Sex, Lies, and Videotape*.[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/retrospective/1989/palmares/) • [7](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098520/awards/)
At the 15th César ceremony in 1990 the film took five awards from eleven nominations: Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay (both Blier), Best Actress (Bouquet), and Best Editing (Claudine Merlin). Depardieu, Balasko, Roland Blanche, Philippe Rousselot, Théobald Meurisse, and poster designer Sylvain Mathieu were nominated without winning.[3](https://www.academie-cinema.org/films/trop-belle-pour-toi/-32177/) • [15](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ie/movie-awards.php?movie-id=333170)
## Reception and commercial performance
Critical response divided along the same line as the film's style. Roger Ebert, the [Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-sun-times) critic and 1975 [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize) winner for criticism, gave it three and a half stars, calling it "grown-up love, not the silly adolescent posturing of Hollywood sex symbols", and praising Balasko's performance and Depardieu's restraint in an ordinary-man role.[10](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/too-beautiful-for-you-1990) Chris Hicks of the Deseret News found the performances mesmerizing and the Schubert gag effective but judged Blier's camera tricks and time shifts nearly fatal to the story.[11](https://www.deseret.com/1990/7/3/20088859/film-review-too-beautiful-for-you/) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 60% Tomatometer from five reviews and a 67% audience score from more than 500 ratings.[16](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/too_beautiful_for_you)
The film drew about 2,031,131 admissions in France, a solid commercial result for a Blier picture, and grossed roughly $36,200 in the United States, where Orion Classics handled it in a limited art-house release.[17](https://cinedweller.com/movie/trop-belle-pour-toi-la-critique-du-film/) • [16](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/too_beautiful_for_you)
## Release and distribution
The CNC registry records visa no. 68763, dated 11 May 1989, with a "Tous publics" (all audiences) classification and a listed theatrical release date of 3 May 1989, while AlloCiné and the Académie des César give 12 May 1989 as the release date.[6](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/68763) • [5](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D4735.html) • [3](https://www.academie-cinema.org/films/trop-belle-pour-toi/-32177/) Production companies included Ciné Valse, DD Productions, Orly Films, SEDIF Productions, and TF1 Films Production.[8](https://splendor-films.com/component/flexicontent/download/2416/761/46) French distribution passed in turn through AMLF, then Pathé Films (1990), Citévox (1990–2009), Tamasa Distribution (2010–2022), and Splendor Films from 2023, which handled a 2024 theatrical re-release.[6](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/68763) • [18](https://www.bdfci.info/film/26064/trop-belle-pour-toi) In Quebec the film, initially classified "13 ans et plus", was reclassified "Visa général" in September 2004.[4](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/trop-belle-pour-toi-27543/)
## Place in Blier's career
*Trop belle pour toi* reunited Blier with Gérard Depardieu, whom he had first brought from café-theater to film stardom in *Les Valseuses* (1974), and gave Carole Bouquet a role Blier later described as transforming her reputation from a beautiful face into a major actress. [Le Monde](https://www.edgepedia.org/le-monde)'s obituary of Blier, who died in January 2025 at 85, singles out the film's premise and its reversal of expectations as characteristic of his cinema of desire without borders or dogma.[19](https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2025/01/21/bertrand-blier-realisateur-et-scenariste-auteur-des-valseuses-est-mort-a-85-ans_6508368_3382.html)
## References
1. [TROP BELLE POUR TOI, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/f/trop-belle-pour-toi/)
2. [Palmarès 1989, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/retrospective/1989/palmares/)
3. [Trop belle pour toi, Académie des César](https://www.academie-cinema.org/films/trop-belle-pour-toi/-32177/)
4. [Trop belle pour toi, Répertoire des films classés (Québec)](https://repertoire.cinema.mcc.gouv.qc.ca/film/trop-belle-pour-toi-27543/)
5. [Trop belle pour toi, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm%3D4735.html)
6. [Visas et Classification no. 68763, CNC](https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/visas-et-classification/68763)
7. [Too Beautiful for You (1989) Awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098520/awards/)
8. [Trop belle pour toi press sheet, Splendor Films](https://splendor-films.com/component/flexicontent/download/2416/761/46)
9. [Trop belle pour toi (1989), cinema-francais.fr](https://cinema-francais.fr/film/trop-belle-pour-toi-1988)
10. [Too Beautiful for You review, Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/too-beautiful-for-you-1990)
11. [Film review: Too Beautiful For You, Deseret News](https://www.deseret.com/1990/7/3/20088859/film-review-too-beautiful-for-you/)
12. [The death of Bertrand Blier, Le Monde (English edition)](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/obituaries/article/2025/01/21/the-death-of-bertrand-blier-french-director-and-screenwriter-who-wrote-going-places_6737258_15.html)
13. [Trop belle pour toi, La Cinémathèque française](https://www.cinematheque.fr/film/46208.html)
14. [Bertrand Blier retrospective catalogue, Festival Premiers Plans d'Angers 2015](https://www.premiersplans.org/storage/medias/archives/documents/catalogues/2015-catalogue.pdf)
15. [Awards of Too Beautiful for You, FilmAffinity](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ie/movie-awards.php?movie-id=333170)
16. [Too Beautiful for You, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/too_beautiful_for_you)
17. [Trop belle pour toi ! : la critique du film, CinéDweller](https://cinedweller.com/movie/trop-belle-pour-toi-la-critique-du-film/)
18. [Trop belle pour toi, BDFCI](https://www.bdfci.info/film/26064/trop-belle-pour-toi)
19. [Bertrand Blier est mort à 85 ans, Le Monde](https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2025/01/21/bertrand-blier-realisateur-et-scenariste-auteur-des-valseuses-est-mort-a-85-ans_6508368_3382.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1980s › Comedy-dramas of the 1980s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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