"Claude Chabrol's latest film is emotionally brutal, morally disturbing and probably one of the masterpieces of this decade...Isabelle Huppert is a working-class housewife in Vichy France who becomes an abortionist. Her character, Marie, begins by helping a desperate neighbor end her pregnancy, later performs abortions for money to feed her two children, and eventually rents out rooms in her home to prostitutes to buy herself pretty clothes. She neglects her children and runs off to trysts with a Nazi collaborator. What began as a humane gesture turns into a thoughtless, irresponsible pattern of behavior...for which she is finally guillotined. Yet the film, which tells a true story, is openly sympathetic to the women who turn to Ms. Huppert's greedy character for help. It castigates the collaborationist government which uses her as a scapegoat...Une Affaire de Femmes has the audacity to embody its complex issues-abortion, the death penalty, religious faith-in a morally ambiguous heroine. Marie often does the right thing for the wrong reasons, or does the wrong thing without giving it a second thought. The film places the weight of moral judgment completely in its viewers' hands." Caryn James, The New York Times, 5/14/89