The Thorn in the Heart Reviews

This is an interesting vignette. Even if nostalgia and flights of fancy cause Gondry to lose focus.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Captures the complexities at the heart of any family, with great generosity of spirit.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

The exploration of the complicated relationship between mother and son provides the most compelling, emotionally grounded moments within the film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Even as a fan, I found it very self-indulgent.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

Its rambling structure, peppered with lyrical, magical-realist asides, may not be to all tastes, but there's a sense that Gondry wants this to be more than an eccentric personal portrait...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A touching insight into a family's inner workings.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

We can recognize the portrait for its intimacy and appreciation of the challenges of a life lived, but it doesn't have any other real pull.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10

(Gondry's) playfulness keeps the film buoyant even as it delves into the thickets of emotional complications of family lives.

Full Review

Gondry's masterful technique and subtle genre-tweaking almost make one forget that there isn't much drama to the story...

Full Review | Original Score: B-

Brimming with affection and beautifully shot, but it builds a flimsy case for why it matters.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Anyone can make a crappy home movie, but it takes an especially self-important one to think anyone other than their own family wants to watch it.

Full Review | Original Score: D

Thorn is Gondry's most personal film, so personal as to be indulgent. But what emerges is his sincere affection for his aunt and a moving emotional experience.

Full Review

This is an extraordinary film.

Full Review

Stylishly filmed, [but] too slight, lazy and not nearly as moving or insightful as it could have been with more piercing and provocative interviews.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.45/10

Like a guest invited to a family reunion, you feel a bit uncomfortable, question why you're there and wonder how long the event will last.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

As Mr. Gondry unfolds the story of her life, and of her inability to connect with the son she sees as weak, you can understand why it would consume a familyâ(TM)s interest, but youâ(TM)re not sure why he thought it would pique ours.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

The movie rarely flags, but it is hard to get past the notion that what is onscreen is nothing more than an artfully made home movie and that the Gondry family saga is no more interesting than that of the average loving, if somewhat dysfunctional family.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

So-so documentary about filmmaker Michel Gondry's gregarious elderly aunt and her reminiscences of family and long years teaching kids in rural France. Clearly a joy for nephew Gondry and his aunt, but maybe this should have been kept en famille.

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The film is well-constructed, as one would expect from Gondry, but it offers little reason for anyone outside the family circle to care about dear old Tante Suzette.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

The film's opening -- a family dinner where favorite dishes are discussed -- suggests a liveliness that the film never fully realizes

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5