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Almost Peaceful

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 1 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by:
Michel Deville
Rosalinde Deville
Robert Bober (novel Quoi de neuf sur la guerre?)
Directed by: Michel Deville
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 20, 2004
DVD: March 29, 2005
Running Time: 94 minutes, Color
Origin: France
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Simon Abkarian, Lubna Azabal, Zabou, Clotilde Courau, Vincent Elbaz, Julie Gayet, Stanislas Merhar, and Denis Podalydès
Set during the largely unexplored period immediately after WWII, 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. (Empire Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site Official French Site
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...
Variety David Stratton
A gentle, sad and at times funny film in the best French tradition of high-quality cinema.
Read Full Review >Village Voice 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.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News 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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Like the work of an expert tailor, it's done with unobtrusive skill, essential warmth and seamless grace.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Unlike any other film I have seen about the Holocaust.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor 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.
Read Full Review >The New York Times 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.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Deville gently reveals that they're all simultaneously hauntingly fragile and amazingly resilient, their smiles as piercing as any resigned gaze.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine 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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
In its embrace of human imperfection the movie recalls with elegant formal simplicity the populist threads of 30s French cinema.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Richard James Havis
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.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
The most pleasant aspect of the picture is its relish of the moment in which it is set. Deville doesn't omit mention of the anti-Semitism in postwar France; still, this little tailoring shop is a good place to have reached after the preceding years.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Succeeds as a delicately moving memory piece about a subject not often put on film: the process of moving on into ordinary life after surviving the Holocaust.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
There's something rather lovely about the mood and intentions of Michel Deville's French movie.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Too many of these characters behave like they just stepped out of a Noel Coward production.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
Presumably, Deville wants to show life returning to normal after WWII, but in the context of this inert movie, "normal" equals "tedious."
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Tim D-L gave it an8:
A lovely character-driven ensemble piece that generates atmosphere and a sense of place as the story moves steadily along. Not for those seeking a Hollywood-style action movie.
