[5] A young woman picks up a suitcase from the station depot, enters a bathroom and comes out in an elegant dress with black sunglasses.

[4] In The Repentant, Masson uses Adjani as her femme fatale and incorporates themes of mystery and impulsiveness to illustrate the feeling of starting anew.

[10] Olivier De Bruyn, writing for Première, assessed it as a "hybrid film: absolutely fascinating but a bit frustrating".

[11] Michel Guilloux of L'Humanité wrote that the film accumulated clichés and the plot quickly revealed itself empty, to the point of boring the audience.

[10] Screen International's Patrick Frater criticized the lack of a deeper examination into the film's themes of "starting over and inventing a past".