The film tells the forgotten story of Andrée Heuschling, also known as Catherine Hessling, who was the last model of impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the first actress in the films of his son, the film director Jean Renoir. Andrée was the link between two famous and widely acclaimed artists, a father and son. While the father is at the end of his brilliant career, the son is still searching for himself, his great career as one of the most celebrated movie directors having not yet begun.[13]
Director Gilles Bourdos used the services of a convicted art forger, Guy Ribes, to create and re-create the Renoir paintings in live action on screen.[14]
The film received generally favorable reviews from critics. The review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes reported 72% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 69 reviews, with an average score of 6.5/10. The critical consensus is: "Appropriately enough, Renoir offers viewers a drama of sumptuous beauty—which is more than enough to offset its frustratingly slow pace and rather thinly written screenplay."[15]Metacritic, which assigns a standardized score out of 100, rated the film 64 based on 23 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[16]
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