Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
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.
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
EMAILPRINTCity Lights Pictures

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 19 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 10 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Cao Hamburger
Directed by: Cao Hamburger
Release Date:
Theatrical: February 15, 2008
DVD: July 15, 2008
Running Time: 110 minutes, Color
Origin: Brazil
Language(s): Portuguese / Yiddish
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Michel Joelsas, Daniela Piepszyk, and Liliana Castro
Set in the turbulent year of 1970, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation is a poignant and humorous coming-of-age story. Mauro is a 12-year-old boy thrust into a maelstrom of political and personal upheaval. When his left-wing militant parents are forced to go underground, Mauro is left in the care of his Jewish grandfather's neighbor in Sao Paulo. Suddenly finding himself an exile in his own country, Mauro is forced to create an ersatz family from the religiously diverse and colorful population of his new neighborhood. Mauro befriends Hanna, a street-smart tomboy, and develops a crush on Irene, a pretty waitress in a local bar. It is at this local bar that everyone, including Mauro (an ardent soccer fan), gathers to watch iconic star Pelé in the 1970 World Cup championship, which Mauro hopes to watch with his parents if they return to Brazil in time. (City Lights Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
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...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
Most political films involving children are vicious or sentimental. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, set in 1970 when Brazil was under the military dictatorship of General Emilio Medici, is neither.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Pulls you into a well-observed world and its characters.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
This sweet, yet unsentimental film is about growing up, losing innocence, and longing for a place, and people, to call home.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
What makes this film appealingly honest are its details, not its grand events.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
The movie is stolen by 11-year-old Daniela Piepszyk as tomboy Hanna, one of Mauro's new friends. She has a face in a million.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Hamburger's earnest effort offers interesting perspectives on Jewish life in South America's most populous city as well as the fate of political dissidents during a particularly dark period of Brazil's recent past.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
The filmmakers succeed with an unexpected ending. It's as fresh as everything in the movie, which turns out to be about so much more than one youngster's resilience.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
It really only comes alive in its shots of people in the neighborhood sitting around their television sets. What we're really talking about here is a problem in scope. In Hamburger's film, the world is no bigger than a cup.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jean Oppenheimer
This warmly engaging film benefits from its understated approach (it suggests rather than spells out the political turmoil), and its light, comedic tone never mitigates the drama of the central story.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The performances are charming and convincing, and Mr. Joelsas does a good job of conveying Mauro’s loneliness and confusion as well as his playfulness. The Year My Parents Went on Vacation may not be terribly fresh or original, but its warm, sweet, nostalgic tone is hard to dislike.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
This nuanced coming-of-age drama by Cao Hamburger exudes warmth without getting mired in nostalgia.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Generally, this writer-director is too sensitive for his own good. He never lets his boy-hero lose himself fully in his new world - or relinquish hope that his parents will return.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Writer-director Cao Hamburger works well with child actors and has a spare, unforced style. But too much of this film is desultory and thin.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Marta Barber
One true gem is Daniela Piepszyk, Mauro's teen neighbor, who is a fireball and the leader of the neighborhood gang of boys. You can't take your eyes off her.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
A sweet and somber film that works hard to overcome its limitations.
Read Full Review >Washington Post John Anderson
What The Year My Parents Went on Vacation seems to be about, in the end, is big-time sport as the opiate of the masses.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
A curiously unaffecting amalgam of the archetypal coming-of-age tale, here twinned to "outsider" religious overtones (in this case São Paulo's Orthodox Jewish community) and a small but deadly dose of uneasy political melodrama.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.9 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Tiago M. gave it a9:
A wonderful movie, sensitive, funnie, smart e very pleasant.
Rit B gave it a3:
Weak film that fails to grab the viewer's interest. The only plus is good camera work.
Michael S. gave it a9:
Enjoyable and sentimental, but involving as it blends soccer, jewish life for a boy, and the political and military milieu of 1970 Brazil.
Paula V. gave it a10:
really good movie!! they did more than they could have with the budged...the children dominate the scene completelly!!!
Deborah L. gave it an8:
quietly steals your heart more completely than dramas that are a lot louder
