One of the few really great French movies of the seventies, The Mother And The Whore is a mammoth movie - 3-1/2 hours long. But there are only three important roles. In a series of dialogues a young man (Jean-Pierre Léaud), his mistress/mother (Bernadette Lafont), and his “whore” (Francoise Lebrun) run the gamut of the possible relationships between men and women. Dostoievskian in its confessional intensity, it was hailed as a masterpiece at its premiere at Cannes, and became a critical (and unexpected) box-office success in its American art theater release.
“Jean Eustache's epic on interpersonal relationships. A he between two sheets for some 3-1/2 hours. New Wave not dead (or still alive, if you want to put it the other way around). The film has its own flavor: it smells of croissants chauds and cafe au lait at the Flore, it sounds like the Rue de Buci's market... in short St. Germain des Pres as if you'd been yawnin' all your life away in its streets. As a bonus some superb acting: and it takes talent to coach old nags like Bernadette Lafont and Jean-Pierre Léaud, and turn them into jumping yearlings. But Jean Eustache seems at his best with Francoise Lebrun, who turns her first screen appearance into a revelation (wait for her ten-minute-straight monologue in the last reel of the film).”