77
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumAlain Resnais' 2006 adaptation of a British play by Alan Ayckbourn is a world apart from his earlier Ayckbourn adaptation, "Smoking/No Smoking"; that film tried to be as "English" as possible. But this time Resnais looks for precise French equivalents to British culture, and what emerges is one of his most personal works, intermittently recalling the melancholy "Muriel" and "Providence."
- 100PremiereGlenn KennyPremiereGlenn KennyResnais employs all the tools of studio-bound moviemaking, silent-era to post-modern, in a way that is not only is consistently dazzling in a purely visual sense, but contains an empathy that lifts the picture to tragic heights even at those points at which it seems practically weightless.
- 83Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumEntertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumThe grand old filmmaker frames each scene like a fine painting. And fake snow falls with happy artificiality between rueful vignettes.
- 83The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasResnais and Ayckbourn care primarily about observing these characters' private and public faces, who they are and who they present themselves as. To that end, they've achieved a mood of enchanting intimacy.
- 80Village VoiceVillage VoiceResnais is now 84 years old; perhaps it takes eight decades of living to make a movie this compassionate, this confident--and this young.
- 80The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisThe film is accessible, pleasant, dreamy, a touch goofy and melancholic. Its modernist gestures are little more than stylistic tics, but there's an image of snow falling on two clasped hands that is almost rapturous. The role of the artist remains, for Mr. Resnais, the role of a lifetime.
- 75New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoClever, wise and witty.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThe Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttThis is a minor film from a master, which is disappointing, but nevertheless it has its charms, most notably in the acting by a cast of stage and screen veterans.
- 60VarietyVarietyDespite a perfect cast of Resnais regulars plus the master's own impeccable crafting, the characters fail to grip, and with approximately 50 short scenes, development comes in fits and starts.
- 50SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirI found the interlocking bitterness of Ayckbourn's play irritating and overly neat, and these people don't seem to belong to Paris or London or anywhere else, at least not anytime in the last 20 years.