| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
The tonal elegance of this black comedy set in a dark time -- is boldly dependent on performances that tug at taut lines of moral complexity.
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| 90 |
Washington Post
Profound, powerful Czech import takes a tragicomic approach to the Holocaust, though unlike Benigni's film, the movie does not sentimentalize those caught up in the Nazi dragnet.
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| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Not only is the film that good, it's also that wonderfully, inescapably Czech.
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| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
The film treats the ensuing issues of conscience and compromise with subtlety and warmth.
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| 88 |
Boston Globe
The film's triumph - and it is a triumph - in the end rests on the ability of Hrebejk and his actors to convince us that they never stop being normal people.
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| 80 |
Washington Post
Based on a true story, the movie takes us through some harrowing times.
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| 80 |
Time
The result is a lovely movie, one that allows its characters unexpected spurts of growth and regression, darkness and grace.
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| 80 |
LA Weekly
Divided We Fall briskly, often hilariously, forbids us to wallow in the specious comfort of untainted local heroes or irredeemable villains.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Hrebejik directs with a sure hand, deftly balancing comedy and drama in a most involving and satisfying manner.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Audiences will talk about how satisfying this movie is.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Parts of the movie play like French farce, but ultimately Hrebejk uses very simple cadences to unveil, movingly, the big picture.
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| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Has the literary richness, depth of character and tone that such a morally difficult, powerful narrative requires.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Mark Peranson
An amiable black comedy.
|
| 70 |
Variety
Confronts an incendiary topic head-on with grace, style, compassion and exquisitely practical wit.
|
| 70 |
New Times (L.A.)
Were it not for the gravity of the setting, the movie could just as easily be a comedy -- with everybody play-acting and doors opening and shutting and the repercussions of lies multiplying geometrically -- as a drama.
|
| 70 |
Wall Street Journal
Bears no resemblance to the smarmy fraud that Roberto Benigni perpetrated in "Life Is Beautiful."
|
| 70 |
The New York Times
The filmmakers explore not only the banality of evil, but also the banality of goodness, and the ridiculousness, as well as the tragedy, of their collision.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
This a deeply humane and affecting movie, surprisingly gentle in spite of its black-comic tinge, and without the slightest hint of schmaltz.
|
| 60 |
Village Voice
In its compassionate absurdism and underlying dark humor, the movie seeks to reestablish contact with the Czech new wave.
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| 50 |
New York Magazine
Divided We Fall is intended to be restorative, but its wish fulfillments, while charming, are also a bit too gaga for that.
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| 50 |
Baltimore Sun
Divided We Fall has a lot going for it, but its Places in the Heart ending, sentimental and incongruous, helps ensure that it will not find a place in a demanding audience's heart or mind.
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| 40 |
Mr. Showbiz
Demonstrates that even if you live in a country intimately familiar with fascist occupation, you might still not have the least clue how to communicate that experience on film.
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| 40 |
TV Guide
None of this is funny, the surreal touches are ridiculous and the final fantasy sequence, in which the nameless ghosts of the murdered Wiener family smile on Josef, is simply nauseating.
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