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Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland · 1999
1h 31m
Director Matej Mináč
Starring Rupert Graves, Josef Abrhám, Jiří Bartoška, Libuše Šafránková
Genre Drama, War
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This poignant historical drama tracks the Silbersteins, a Jewish-Czech family living in Czechoslovakia before its invasion by the Nazis. As the family gradually accepts the grave danger they face, they must decide whether to stay or flee, with desperate attempts to emigrate from some members bringing them into contact with real-life British humanitarian Nicholas Winton.
The New York Times by Dave Kehr
The material continues to carry its inherent emotional power and moral importance. As banal as the telling may be -- and at times, All My Loved Ones more than flirts with kitsch -- the tale commands attention.
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
Despite a somewhat unpolished look and a few slips into cliche, the film makes up in sincerity what it lacks in sophistication.
The movie is loaded with good intentions, but in his zeal to squeeze the action and our emotions into the all-too-familiar dramatic arc of the Holocaust escape story, Minac drains his movie of all individuality.
A situation of such inherent drama only suffers from the director's attempts to intensify it, and eventually, the scenes of professional and personal rejection begin to suffer from an overabundance of pathos.
The final moment of Minac's film is a powerful tribute to Winton's heroism and the magnitude of his achievement, easily eclipsing the 90 minutes that precede it.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
It is crucial when viewing All My Loved Ones, with its fine ensemble cast and well-evoked sense of time and place, to remember that it unfolds as a recollection of David, a boy of perhaps 10 in 1938.
It traces a sustained and moving portrait of the worldly Sam, whose despair as the society he embraced abandons him is both clear-eyed and devastating.
New York Post by Megan Lehmann
"Schindler's List" it ain't, and the whole is rendered occasionally surreal by Janusz Stoklosa's laughably heavy-handed score.
Clearly inspired by, though not in the same dramatic league as, "Schindler's List," pic is marred by uneven perfs and lacks the intensity.