L'Auberge Espagnole

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

In almost every way that I can think of, L'Auberge Espagnole is a perfect movie... It is a film that feels alive.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Blissfully funny, terrifically intelligent and tender when you least expect it to be.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

It's an exhilarating, funny, very sweet movie.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

L’Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Hotel) is unexpectedly entertaining because it captures the point in young adulthood when life is unseriously serious, or maybe seriously unserious.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A love song to the new Europe (Klapisch's original title: Euro Pudding) and a snapshot of a polyglot gang on the cusp of kind-of-reckless youth and responsibility-burdened adulthood.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

This community finds its balance with an easy effortlessness.

The New Yorker David Denby

Vignettish and offhand, but it’s extremely pleasant, and it suggests what can be done with lightweight equipment and a loose-limbed approach to the right subject. [19 May 2003, p. 94]

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Exhilarating comedy...Its warm, embracing spirit is refreshing in these divisive times.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Not since Lukas Moodysson's "Together" has communal living been depicted with such warmth and feeling for the entire ensemble.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Writer-director-actor Cedric Klapisch simultaneously shows great moviemaking flair and reveals a very peculiar worldview.

USA Today Claudia Puig

It energetically captures the frenzied pace of contemporary existence, the complexities of life in a multicultural world, the rootless joys of living in a foreign city and the heady world of possibilities one envisions while in college.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie is as light and frothy as a French comedy, which is what it is, a reminder that Cedric Klapisch also directed "When the Cat's Away" (1996).

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Best of all, L'Auberge Espagnol uses Barcelona as a veritable character, a picturesque, vivacious place where, as one character puts it, ''No one eats before 10 p.m."

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Does a beautiful job of capturing that mood -- the exuberance and wistfulness of one man's last year of youthful irresponsibility before joining the rat race.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A lighthearted, good-natured motion picture that contains enough humor to leaven the tone and keep the drama from becoming too serious.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The atmosphere of gentle communal chaos is authentic enough to become the movie's dramatic center.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The movie also rather sweetly suggests that the apartment being shared is Europe itself. There's a reason this warm, stylish human comedy was a big hit all across the Continent: It conveys a new generation's conviction that borders no longer matter.

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

Klapisch frequently uses voiceovers to express Xavier’s thoughts, and Duris expresses those thoughts beautifully, with a quirky open face, tuned perfectly to whatever his character is thinking.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The characters are well-observed and mercifully unrepresentative of their home countries. (Kevin Bishop is laugh-out-loud funny as a clueless British visitor who shows up to offend more than one national sensibility.)

Chicago Reader Jennifer Vanasco

The film is a pleasant ramble through an eventful year. Klapisch's special effects--cameras speeding down hallways, superimposed images--are both amusing and annoying.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Presents an appealing and persuasive picture of European integration, in which national differences, which once sparked military and political conflict, are preserved because they make life sexier and more interesting.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

A film whose limitations are the same as its appeal: It's a bauble. Running at barely more than 80 minutes, the film is both a travelogue and a commercial for swinging polyglot Europe.

TV Guide Ken Fox

The real stars of the film are Francois Emmanuelli's vibrant production design, Klapisch's flair with inventive optical effects and above all Barcelona itself, captured here in all its baroque brilliance.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The pace is fairly hectic, which it needs to be. (Mustn't linger on bubbles.) The performances are warm, especially the tender Judith Godrèche as the doctor's wife.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

While breezy and fun, the film is also flimsy and sloppy in style and content.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

At times, writer-director Cedric Klapsich seems to be trying to copy the frestyle of "Amelie," but L'Auberge achieves only a fraction of its charm.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Beware of movies whose creators boast of the little effort involved. Little reward is what you're likely to get.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

A dodgy, hit-or-miss affair that never quiet seems to gel: too many lumpy bits, and not enough crème.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Movies can certainly be worse than bad sitcoms, and this is one of them.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Klapisch wants his characters shiny bright, and winds up making them excruciatingly dull in the process. Watching L'Auberge Espagnole is like seeing the young Maoist revolutionaries of Jean-Luc Godard's 1967 "La Chinoise" body-snatched by the international touring company of "Up With People."

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Cédric Klapisch has been compared to Truffaut, but the new-waver's weakness for glib sentimentalism seems to have left the biggest impression on L'Auberge Espagnole.