Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Abouna

EMAILPRINTLeisure Time Features

Abouna reviews
70
9.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 10 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 2 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Foreign

Written by: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

Directed by: Mahamat-Saleh Haroun

Release Date:
Theatrical: February 20, 2004
DVD: May 17, 2005

Running Time: 84 minutes, Color

Origin: France / Chad

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Ahidjo Mahamat Moussa, Hamza Moctar Aguid, Zara Haroun, Mounira Khalil, and Hassan Boulama

Set in the sub-Saharan country of Chad, this is the story of two young brothers and their mother who are devastated when their father suddenly disappears.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Film Threat Phil Hall

Truly magnificent.

Read Full Review >
80

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Poignant though it is, the movie is the opposite of depressing. There is too much life in it.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Haroun is deft at handling the joys and pain of childhood. He neither condescends nor ­­over-sentimentalizes. It is a story of separation anxiety (for Amine) and coming of age (for Tahir) and it's universal.

Read Full Review >
70

Variety David Stratton

Haroun's film is both touching and, ultimately, almost perversely optimistic.

Read Full Review >
70

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

By way of a tragic left hook, Haroun's relaxed movie climaxes back where it began, on the devastated home ground. The journey, however pessimistic, is like a gentle handshake.

Read Full Review >
70

TV Guide Ken Fox

Haroun and cinematographer Abraham Haile Biru carefully frame their characters with a painterly elegance that is at times truly startling.

Read Full Review >
70

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The story of the film is a quiet local tale; the directing is sophisticated.

Read Full Review >
70

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Abouna starkly defines the masculine and feminine influence in raising children, and what happens when they're not so complementary.

Read Full Review >
70

Chicago Reader Fred Camper

Understated but affecting.

Read Full Review >
50

New York Post Megan Lehmann

This modest little film out of Africa suffers from largely rudderless direction, relying for any sense of profundity on the breathtaking beauty of Abraham Haile Biru's cinematography.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

M. Daye gave it a10:
Sometimes silence can say so much more than blocks of mawkish dialogue. Brilliantly-acted and wonderfully shot.

Moeder D. gave it an8:
Understated, beguiling, and gorgeously filmed; more heart than you'll see in any Hollywood blockbuster this year.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use