At first glance, Ma Nuit chez Maud may appear intolerably stuffy, and removed from the realities of life in a French provincial town. La Collectionneuse, Eric Rohmer's other "conte morale" seen in this country, was altogether too much the work of an aesthete who rigorously eschewed any kind of emotional sympathy with his characters. But in Ma Nuit chez Maud we are scarcely aware of this intellectual standpoint. The film works simply because it lives up to its pretensions. It "cites" Pascal much as Bergman "cites" Mozart in Hour of the Wolf, but it is perfectly comprehensible to the viewer who is unfamiliar with the "Lettres Provinciales" or the "Pensées"….

Rohmer allows us to identify with Jean-Louis from the start…. His manner betrays dissatisfaction with his loneliness, and it is this vein of frustration that makes him vulnerable to all the events of the film. Yet secretly we relish identification with a man whose eyes glance eagerly at an attractive blonde during Mass….

So to a certain extent we comply with Jean-Louis's decisions from now on….

It is a measure of Rohmer's achievement that we still side with Jean-Louis against the somewhat mocking sophistication of Vidal and his attractive divorcee friend, Maud. (p. 11)

Conversation is vital in Ma Nuit chez Maud. It lays bare the four characters more cleanly and with less affectation than any violent action could. The long discussions on science, morals, and Pascal are not so rarefied as they might seem. Every argument raised has its counterpart—or its demonstration—in the film's proceedings. In Pascal, says Vidal, mathematician and metaphysician are one, and it is not long before we perceive why Jean-Louis shrinks from the Jansenist camp. For Pascal despised the relaxed morality of the Jesuits. In the "Pensées" he sided boldly with faith against reason, urging his readers to discipline the body to the outward observance of Christianity. But Jean-Louis is a Jesuit to his fingertips (this accounts for his appeal to our susceptibilities early in the picture). He is self-satisfied…. Thus religion for Jean-Louis is a convenient cloak of propriety beneath which he may shelter his desires. (p. 12)

[The] uncanny grasp of a character's response to a situation is Rohmer's principal forte here. He has built his film on a contradiction: the clash between rationalism and sensitivity-cum-intuition in Pascal….

In the final analysis, Rohmer challenges our own ambivalent reaction to his film. We respond to Jean-Louis because he is not afraid to abandon his principles for something joyful and worthwhile; we reject him when he continues to assert those principles at the expense of other people's emotions. (p. 13)