67
Metascore
17 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80VarietyDavid StrattonVarietyDavid StrattonA gentle, sad and at times funny film in the best French tradition of high-quality cinema.
- 80Village VoiceLeslie CamhiVillage VoiceLeslie CamhiFrench director Michel Deville has managed to preserve the work's great virtues--the intimacy, discretion, grace, and humor with which it speaks of both irredeemable disaster and the taste for life that survives it.
- 75Christian Science MonitorDavid SterrittChristian Science MonitorDavid SterrittThe gently told comedy-drama is more colorful than you'd expect, using wry humor and lively music to keep sentimentality at bay.
- 75New York Daily NewsJack MathewsNew York Daily NewsJack MathewsThese are people who are just waking up to life again. It may appear to be the ultimate non-action ­movie, but in the context of these lives, it is the highest kind of ­drama.
- 70New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter RainerNew York Magazine (Vulture)Peter RainerThe film was adapted from a 1993 novel by Robert Bober, who drew on his own childhood experiences, and as it unwinds, one begins to appreciate Deville's desire to see things work out well for these people.
- 70The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisIt takes talent to make audiences care about ordinary people doing ordinary things, just as it takes guts to end a movie with something as corny as the sounds of children playing.
- 70TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghDeville gently reveals that they're all simultaneously hauntingly fragile and amazingly resilient, their smiles as piercing as any resigned gaze.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterIt's a quiet film, shunning melodrama and political polemic. Instead, it opts for a human touch, conveying how a group of very different survivors come to terms with the past and plan a future in their own unique ways.
- 50The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurrayToo many of these characters behave like they just stepped out of a Noel Coward production.
- 25New York PostMegan LehmannNew York PostMegan LehmannPresumably, Deville wants to show life returning to normal after WWII, but in the context of this inert movie, "normal" equals "tedious."