50
Loses focus and sags into a how-we-got-through-it family procedural.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Boxoffice Magazine by John P. McCarthy
The Father of My Children is a protean charmer just like Grégoire Canvel, the title character modeled on the late Humbert Balsan.
80
Marked by moments of remarkable stillness amid its emotional tumult, the film's classy, perceptive treatment of potentially maudlin material merits wider arthouse attention than it's likely to receive.
60
When The Father of My Children shifts focus to Grégoire’s wife (Caselli) and children (the eldest is beautifully played by De Lencquesaing’s actual daughter, Alice), Hansen-Løve’s hand steadies, and she reveals a true talent for intimate, behavioral observation.
80
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
What French writer-director Mia Hansen-Love has created is an extraordinarily empathetic humanistic drama, a film of love, joy, sadness and hope that understands how complex our emotions are and does beautiful justice to them.
50
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
In the end, an audience has far too much knowledge about Gregoire's movie projects and finances and far too little about what makes anyone here tick.
90
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
A tale of cinema, a story about the agonies of trying to work outside the cinematic mainstream (even in France!). Yet what makes the movie so affecting is that it’s also a love story about a family.
80
Hansen-Løve’s gifts for mood and eliciting controlled, empathetic performances are well-suited to her sensitive material, and ultimately overshadow the film’s difficult and uneven central characterization.
75
It’s refreshing not to be led along or handled by a filmmaker, but given the almost-novelistic structure of The Father Of My Children--which juggles half a dozen or so major characters and follows their reaction to a crisis in obsessive detail--the movie could stand to be a little more dynamic.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The film's second half is the most touching, because it shows that our lives are not merely our own, but also belong to the events we set in motion.