The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by
À la vie is a gentle toast – the film sticks to its subtle tone, which is both its strength and its weakness.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France · 2014
1h 44m
Director Jean-Jacques Zilbermann
Starring Julie Depardieu, Suzanne Clément, Hippolyte Girardot, Johanna ter Steege
Genre Comedy, Drama
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Helen, Rose, and Lili have survived the Holocaust and have never seen each other since the war ended. In 1960, they meet again in Berck, France. Together they learn to let go of their past demons and enjoy the simple pleasures in life: nice meals, ballads on the beach, playing in the waves.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by
À la vie is a gentle toast – the film sticks to its subtle tone, which is both its strength and its weakness.
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
Absent any real sense of who these three women are as individuals, most of their behavior is reduced to what feels like tics that are meant to illuminate character in a rather crude way.
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
More resonant in theory than in execution, the post-Holocaust drama To Life never truly embraces the promise of its title or the roiling emotion beneath its surface.
The New York Times by Helen T. Verongos
There is a delicate beauty to this movie and its visual composition.
Given the complexity of everything the characters went through, it’s a shame to witness their lives reduced to a sequence of TV-movie moments.
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