The Well Digger's Daughter Reviews
Top Critic"The Well-Digger's Daughter" isn't a mind-blower; it's not supposed to be. It's a light lunch with an old friend whom it's good to see again.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
Auteuil's direction is a lot like his acting -- well-mannered and likable, yet staid and ultimately inconsequential.
To call "The Well Digger's Daughter" an old-fashioned film is to pay it a compliment. Here is a love story embedded in traditional values.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
East Bay Express
The countryside of high Provence is a major character all its own.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"The Well-Digger's Daughter" is perhaps a bit too sentimental. But the performances are so heartfelt that its occasional excesses are easily forgiven.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
It's classical moviemaking of a sort rarely seen now, a love story of surprising joy with rounded, flawed but humane characters.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Think of it as a pretty good, French-language bucolic entry in PBS' "Masterpiece" franchise and you'll be fine.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
What resonates is a sense of humanity that sometimes gets lost in films with less regard for traditional storytelling, or respect for simple emotion.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Astrid Bergès-Frisbey as Patricia and Jean-Pierre Darroussin are almost enchanting, but it is Auteuil, entering a new career as mature actor-director, whom we want to cheer.
Boston Herald
Strong pedigree pushes 'Well Digger's Daughter' to the top.
Full Review
| Original Score: B plus
"The Well-Digger's Daughter" feels decidedly, almost defiantly, old-fashioned, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
It's the first film directed by the actor Daniel Auteuil, as part of a four-film project to remake films by the writer-director Marcel Pagnol, and if the others are this good, this is a project to look forward to.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Let "The Well-Digger's Daughter" take you back in time, not once but several times over.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Cinema Signals
The jewel at the heart of the piece is Berges-Frisbey -- the ravishing mermaid Syrena in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Auteuil the director knows not to get in the way of Pagnol's plot machinery. Auteuil the actor is another story.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Boston Phoenix
Despite a verbose script and the kneejerk sexism of Pascal, the visual beauty and narrative simplicity make the film a pleasure.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
About.com
I mean, if egocentric, short-sighted, emotionally crippling fathers aren't going to fight for their daughters' hymens WHO WILL!?
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
It's a movie that could easily have been made 50 years ago, and I don't mean that as a knock. There is much to be said for a film that values unflashy craft and simple, unhurried storytelling.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Even as you wish the material had been reshaped into something riskier, you may find yourself appreciating the sincerity and unshowy workmanship that went into the movie.
