40
It's a shock, then, that The Thorn in the Heart, Gondry's documentary about his own family, is so unimaginative and inaccessible.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
This is an extraordinary film.
20
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
The connection they share is clear; the reason we're invited to sit in is foggy at best.
40
This moving but far from revelatory portrait of a beloved family figure registers as too slight and personal for significant theatrical play.
40
Overall, the movie has the bantamweight feel of a really long DVD extra: Little details of the director’s ancestral stomping grounds are appealing, but don’t jell into something satisfying.
67
If he’d pulled back more, Gondry might’ve seen the real story here: how maternal figures often look better to people who don’t actually have them for a mother.
42
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
But overall, this lazy, sweet trifle seems to express the banality of well-being.
50
The film is well-constructed, as one would expect from Gondry, but it offers little reason for anyone outside the family circle to care about dear old Tante Suzette.