Critics reviews

Boudu is dragged into [civilized society] by a bourgeois bookseller who hopes to "save" him from his "plight." But instead of praise Boudu brings chaos, destabilizing the household from within. Simon closely collaborated with director Jean Renoir on the production, and it is a tour de force performance, with Simon a loose-limbed satyr, extending his gangly frame in all the wrong directions so as to most annoy his hosts.

For a film that is frequently characterized as an unequivocal cherry bomb dropped in the toilet of middle-class airs (a stance fuelled by Simon's blowsy, sensual, canonical performance as Boudu), Renoir's portrayal of the otherwise pathetic Lestingois is surprisingly warm.

Unlike [Beasts of the Southern Wild's] preternaturally wise tot, however, there's nothing simple about Boudu, who functions as both a potent metaphor of nonconformity and a cautionary figure. He exists somewhere between Borzage's poor and Browning's freaks, a social casualty not willing to be gawked at.

Much of the force of Renoir's savage satire comes from its practical, documentary source—his visual record of the Paris of the day, which serves not as a backdrop but as an integral part of the drama.

By most standards Boudu is a minor work in Renoir's career, but even the minor works of great artists contain great truths. The reiterated truth of Boudu is that Renoir will always sacrifice form for truth, and that though his films may be disconcerting experiences to others, they are never dishonest expressions of his own vision of life.