Ultimately doesn't have anything that I haven't seen before in My Life as a Dog or a hundred other movies just like it.
Comment
07/23/04
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Hard Goodbyes: My Father (2003)
85
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:27
Fresh:23
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: Karayannis handles the lead role well, and the result is a poignant exploration of grief.
Reviews for Hard Goodbyes: My Father
Poignant, convincing and directed with confidence and an enchanted eye.
05/01/04
Top Criticfuses to concede to clichés of precocious kids and eccentric adults
06/10/04
Begins to take on an allegorical, global feel.
04/12/05
Alternately whimsical and harsh, Hard Goodbyes probably deserves to be seen as a promising first feature, although it lacks the grace and novelty of a similar movie, My Life As a Dog.
02/04/05
Top CriticGoes from being appropriately child-like to simply childish.
07/26/05
Depressing and so leisurely paced that the emotional impact is often lost between yawns.
06/25/04
About nothing so much as a soulful kid's first encounter with the most literal and poetic meanings of the word 'gone.'
04/22/05
Considering the delicate and weighty subject matter, the film's tone is surprisingly light, sometimes even humorous, which helps to balance the harsh sentiments that death inevitably brings.
09/16/05
Top CriticNot perfect, exciting, fresh, but well crafted, well acted, and very well directed
02/09/05
...has about it the whiff of autobiography, given the specificity of the details and the odd, enchanting drift from an initial tone of social realism toward fantasy.
01/17/05
A tender, gently paced coming-of-age movie whose strength is its young lead actor.
07/09/04
Top CriticIt features an endearing, mature performance from its juvenile lead.
11/29/04
Hard Goodbyes could easily have been maudlin, but isn't. Credit an adult script and realistic acting, especially by Giorgos Karayannis as Elias.
09/16/05
Top CriticA complex charmer that shows us, in images and in behavior as poetic as they are plausible, a bittersweet parable about human adaptability.
06/18/04
Top CriticA lovingly observed elegy to lost innocence, conveying the emotional complexity of bereavement with the naiveté of a child's perceptions.
05/01/04
Definitely a good movie, but one that can be unbearably and painfully sad, especially for fathers.
04/29/04
A tender and moving drama that deserves wider exposure.
10/11/05
Top CriticGreek director-writer Penny Panayotopoulou's compelling debut feature is a psychological drama about an Athenian family dealing with grief.
02/23/05
With soft heartedness and beautiful imagery, the film aptly captures the feeling of disbelief and aversion that hits children in a time of loss.
01/15/05
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