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80One of the many stylistic distinctions of this outwardly modest production is the complex voice that the filmmaker has found for his young hero.
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75The film is warm and intriguing, and he (Valentin) is the engine that pulls us through it. We care about what happens to him; high praise.
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75Valentin is cut from the Woody Allen school of movie kids. With oversized black glasses and small-size suits, he is the total know-it-all package, right down to his insightful voice-over.
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75Never becomes cloying, because although Agresti does not lose sight of the great sadness at the center of his tale, he resists the temptation to overplay its bigger moments.
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75Can be enjoyed if you don't mind a little manipulation.
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70With charm to spare, Valentin fuses nostalgia and humor in an episodic story whose ultimate focus is the birth of a writer.
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70Quietly, with pathos and tinges of melancholy humor, Valentin pays homage to the heroism of creating your own world when the one that's on offer breaks your heart.
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67The character of Valentin is immediately recognizable to anyone who's gone to more than 20 films in their lives -- charming, cuddly, hellbent on making his world tolerable -- but to his credit both Noya and Agresti don't overplay their hand.
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67The film is uniformly well cast, directed (by Alejandro Agresti, who also plays Valentin's father) with a certain flair and a good eye for the nuances of Buenos Aires. I found it light, agreeably short (86 minutes) and mostly quite enjoyable.
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63Noya is a natural actor, and there are genuinely sweet moments between him and the adults. So, why did Agresti feel the need to pour so much added sugar down our throats?
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63Sweet, often poignant little film.
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63Heartfelt and artfully shot, the movie - with little Rodrigo Noya, wearing big eyeglasses, in the title role - is too sweet for its own good, even as some of its characters do things that aren't terribly sweet at all.
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63As a whole, Valentin is a moderately entertaining motion picture, but the lack of a satisfying sense of closure dims its appeal.
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63A well-cast drama that switches between sweetness and menace, the film goes down easily, thanks to a talented cast.
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60His constant chatter may grate, but Noya does the wide-eyed wonderment thing very well.
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60Agresti has more on his mind than tugging at heartstrings.
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58Agresti fattens us up with the kind of kid's-eye-view tragi-comic adventures that regularly supply empty calories in artificially sweetened foreign-language imports.
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50The wrap-up feels tacked-on and too good to be true, with emotions the story really hasn't earned.
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50Narrated from start to close by an 8-year-old, it often seems like a coloring book on tape.
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Argentinean director Alejandro Agresti's own specs are rose-colored. This loosely autobiographical tale feels inorganically upbeat, with all potentially upsetting material glossed over or truncated.
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50Essentially this is a pale imitation of "My Life as a Dog" or "Cinema Paradiso." It means well, but it's only a "feel-good" experience if your concept of that term involves being jerked around and doused in sap.
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50The choice to have Valentin narrate the tale and make philosophical observations beyond his years becomes irritating at times; ditto the cartoon humor.
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40While there's little to be gained from over-critiquing a child's performance, it must be said that director Alejandro Agresti badly miscalculates the appeal of his young star; the fact he not only dominates each scene but provides the film's narration means there's not getting away from young Noya.
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40The characters in the Argentinean heart-warmer Valentín spend so much time squabbling and yelling that after a while I began to long for a nice movie about a family of mutes.
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40It's not that Noya is bad as kid actors go, but a pair of dewy, crossed eyes and a beyond-his-years melancholy do not an entire movie make.
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40It takes mere seconds for every charming moment to go from "Ahhh..." to "Aarrggh!"
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40The film feels authentic only during the scenes between Valentín and his selfish, angry father.
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30Agresti's just out to give us a sentimental good time. Which some people, heaven help us, will have -- while the rest of us choke on the cutesiness.
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30The kid chews up the scenery like a baby T-Rex, egged on, no doubt, by director Agresti.