Almost Peaceful
Empire Pictures | Release Date: August 20, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
67
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
1
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
VarietyDavid Stratton
A gentle, sad and at times funny film in the best French tradition of high-quality cinema. Read full review
80
Village VoiceLeslie Camhi
French director Michel Deville has managed to preserve the work's great virtues--the intimacy, discretion, grace, and humor with which it speaks of both irredeemable disaster and the taste for life that survives it. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Modest, wise ensemble piece. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The gently told comedy-drama is more colorful than you'd expect, using wry humor and lively music to keep sentimentality at bay. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
These are people who are just waking up to life again. It may appear to be the ultimate non-action ­movie, but in the context of these lives, it is the highest kind of ­drama. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Like the work of an expert tailor, it's done with unobtrusive skill, essential warmth and seamless grace. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Unlike any other film I have seen about the Holocaust. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The film was adapted from a 1993 novel by Robert Bober, who drew on his own childhood experiences, and as it unwinds, one begins to appreciate Deville's desire to see things work out well for these people. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
It takes talent to make audiences care about ordinary people doing ordinary things, just as it takes guts to end a movie with something as corny as the sounds of children playing. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Deville gently reveals that they're all simultaneously hauntingly fragile and amazingly resilient, their smiles as piercing as any resigned gaze. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterRichard James Havis
It's a quiet film, shunning melodrama and political polemic. Instead, it opts for a human touch, conveying how a group of very different survivors come to terms with the past and plan a future in their own unique ways. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
The most pleasant aspect of the picture is its relish of the moment in which it is set. Deville doesn't omit mention of the anti-Semitism in postwar France; still, this little tailoring shop is a good place to have reached after the preceding years. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Succeeds as a delicately moving memory piece about a subject not often put on film: the process of moving on into ordinary life after surviving the Holocaust. Read full review
70
Washington PostDesson Thomson
There's something rather lovely about the mood and intentions of Michel Deville's French movie. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
In its embrace of human imperfection the movie recalls with elegant formal simplicity the populist threads of 30s French cinema. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Too many of these characters behave like they just stepped out of a Noel Coward production. Read full review
25
New York PostMegan Lehmann
Presumably, Deville wants to show life returning to normal after WWII, but in the context of this inert movie, "normal" equals "tedious." Read full review
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