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The Year My Parents Went on Vacation
Metascore
67 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
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  1. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Bill White
    91
    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.
  2. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    88
    Pulls you into a well-observed world and its characters.
  3. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: M. E. Russell
    83
    A sweet, intelligent little movie.
  4. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    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.
  5. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    75
    This sweet, yet unsentimental film is about growing up, losing innocence, and longing for a place, and people, to call home.
  6. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    75
    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.
  7. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    75
    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.
  8. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    75
    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.
  9. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    What makes this film appealingly honest are its details, not its grand events.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jean Oppenheimer
    70
    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.
  11. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    70
    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.
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Deborah Young
    70
    Sensitive, delicate and involving.
  13. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Andrea Gronvall
    70
    This nuanced coming-of-age drama by Cao Hamburger exudes warmth without getting mired in nostalgia.
  14. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    67
    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.
  15. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    67
    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.
  16. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Marta Barber
    63
    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.
  17. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    60
    A sweet and somber film that works hard to overcome its limitations.
  18. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    50
    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.
  19. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marc Savlov
    40
    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.
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.9 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. TiagoM.
    9
    A wonderful movie, sensitive, funnie, smart e very pleasant.
  2. RitB
    3
    Weak film that fails to grab the viewer's interest. The only plus is good camera work.
  3. MichaelS.
    9
    Enjoyable and sentimental, but involving as it blends soccer, jewish life for a boy, and the political and military milieu of 1970 Brazil.
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