User Score
8.1 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 7 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 7
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 7
  3. Negative: 0 out of 7

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  1. Jan 24, 2011
    9
    Powerful matriarchs, a system of economic oppression and a culture told through the medium of food. Sleepy France is seen but never heard, instead the familial space centres the narrative and provides a framework for naturalism. The acting is spot-on, the camera innocently soaks up the atmosphere with a wondrous eye for detail and our perspective is that of an 'insider' like someone who is part of the cultural fabric or part of the family. A great learning experience and positively specific. 9/10 94/100 Expand
Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 16 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 16
  2. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. A penchant for suffocating close-ups and an overabundance of scenes that go on far too long mar Abdellatif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain, an otherwise engaging drama about an immigrant Arab family in France.
  2. Reviewed by: Alissa Simon
    50
    An overlong, dramatically unbalanced picture whose emotional wallop gets somewhat diffused.
  3. 100
    An entire family chronicle, along with four decades of French social and economic history, is recapitulated as a lavish, hectic dinner, complete with music and belly dancing. It will leave you stunned and sated, having savored an intimate and sumptuous epic of elation and defeat, jealousy and tenderness, life and death, grain and fish.