Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Michel Deville
Cast
Simon Abkarian,
Zabou Breitman,
Vincent Elbaz,
Lubna Azabal,
Denis Podalydès,
Julie Gayet
Genre
Comedy,
Drama,
Romance
Set during the largely unexplored period immediately following World War II, the film follows a group of mostly Jewish Parisians who attempt to restart their lives and rekindle their capacity for happiness in the shadow of unspeakable horrors. Variety called it "thoroughly charming. Sad, gentle, and funny in the best French tradition of high quality cinema." A film by Marcelo Gomes
We hate to say it, but we can't find anywhere to view this film.
Village Voice by Leslie Camhi
French 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.
Variety by David Stratton
A gentle, sad and at times funny film in the best French tradition of high-quality cinema.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
These 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.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The gently told comedy-drama is more colorful than you'd expect, using wry humor and lively music to keep sentimentality at bay.
The Hollywood Reporter
It'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.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Deville gently reveals that they're all simultaneously hauntingly fragile and amazingly resilient, their smiles as piercing as any resigned gaze.
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
It 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.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
The 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.
The A.V. Club by Noel Murray
Too many of these characters behave like they just stepped out of a Noel Coward production.
New York Post by Megan Lehmann
Presumably, Deville wants to show life returning to normal after WWII, but in the context of this inert movie, "normal" equals "tedious."
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