60
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Cousin Jules is in many ways a wonder to see and hear, but there is less to it than meets the eye.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
For 91 minutes, the pleasure of the Guiteauxes’ company is ours. We are ultimately the richer for it.
91
After years of being a long-lost gem, Cousin Jules has finally been found and is receiving its due as an innovative, meditative case study of rural life.
88
New York Post by Farran Smith Nehme
It only seems plotless. Momentous things happen, one of them telegraphed in a single heartbreaking shot. The sense of time and place is so intense that Jules’ way of life seems to be disappearing even as we watch him.
88
Slant Magazine by Jesse Cataldo
It's a bit reductive in terms of a personal portrait, but this is a film that's not concerned with telling the story of a man, instead making him a representative symbol of a mostly bygone way of life, a reminder of both the fleeting nature of individual experience and the steady patterns of a broader human existence.
90
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Rescued from decay after the director's 2011 death and looking radiant in a 2K restoration, this quiet gem is a time capsule whose potential audience may be small, but will be transported.
80
Yet even as the timelessness of the human activity on display seduces with its serenity, it evokes in modern viewers a definite impatience with the impracticality of traditional rites and rhythms, perhaps only enjoyable in 90-minute doses.
70
As director Dominique Benicheti invites the audience to contemplate this way of life—and that’s all the film seeks to accomplish, which is plenty—he reveals the virtues of simplicity, routine, and quietly communing with the natural world.
100
Cousin Jules is one of those rare experiences that’s rooted in the past yet feels very much of the moment. On top of that, it’s timeless.
80
Village Voice by Zachary Wigon
Thoroughly transporting, the peacefulness and clarity of Cousin Jules can't help but reveal, by contrast, the restlessness and agitation too common to life today.