83
Gabrielle borders on the manipulative, but Archambault’s refusal to shy away from the tougher questions the narrative raises keeps it from being swallowed by its own sentimentality.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
Archambault is fluent in small, self-contained moments. Even as their guardians are forced into difficult conversations, Gabrielle and Martin's private exchanges ring true.
70
Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey
Though the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve, the music and the cast, many of them members of the real Les Muses, as Marion-Rivard was for a time, are simply so charming that it makes Gabrielle hard to resist.
70
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
Despite a slightly grating tendency to resist any kind of subtlety, the honest and convincingly played central romance does finally linger.
50
Writer-director Louise Archambault's neatly affirmative denouement is at odds with the more uncertain reality occurring at the edges of the film's drama.
63
New York Post by Farran Smith Nehme
Its sentiment is appealing, though, and its sincerity doesn’t cloy.
70
Archambault’s handling of Gabrielle and Martin’s sexuality is one of the pic’s strong suits, presenting their desire with a refreshing, straightforward honesty.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
Instead of a message movie, Gabrielle is a romance and an unusual kind of musical that seamlessly integrates special needs actors with the other cast members.
63
McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore
The singing is nice, the peripheral characters interesting. But a love that others don’t approve of, that may get in the way of a big concert debut? That makes Gabrielle a bit too Lifetime Original Movie for its own good.
80
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
If the title role of Gabrielle weren’t so fully embodied by its star, Gabrielle Marion-Rivard, this French Canadian movie about love among the disabled would fall on the condescendingly mushy side of the line between heartwarming and saccharine.