The Well Digger's Daughter Reviews

Auteuil's direction is a lot like his acting -- well-mannered and likable, yet staid and ultimately inconsequential.

Full Review

Ultimately comes off as curiously anecdotal, lacking the dramatic dynamism that could give Marcel Pagnol's tale new life.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

A pastoral wrapped in gauze, sunlight and sentimentality.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5

Remake lacks the power of context

Full Review

Doesn't give us reason to assume that what we don't see is much more scandalous than what we do.

Full Review

Auteuil shines in bucolic French melodrama about filial love and forgiveness.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

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

Auteuil is hardly the first to sing the praises of Provence, but he sings with a passion eloquent enough to give nostalgia a good name.

Full Review

An unchallenging but utterly palatable movie to take your subtitle-reading grandma to see on a Sunday afternoon.

Full Review

The countryside of high Provence is a major character all its own.

Full Review

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

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

A film to enjoy away from the noise and chaos of most movies on offer, and while not relevant in some ways, certainly relevant as a note about the strengths and weaknesses of human nature

Full Review

Daniel Auteuil offers a crowd-pleasing remake of a Marcel Pagnol classic.

Full Review

[It's] enjoyable enough as it plods along, and the final act wraps things up on a fulfilling note.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

"The Well-Digger's Daughter" transports the viewer to the smells, rhythms, and social constraints of a France that no longer exists.

Full Review | Original Score: A-

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.

Full Review

[An] inauspicious but cheerfully populist directorial debut.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

here's a broad appeal to be gleaned from its antiquated charm, modest focus and a clutch of ripe, old-school character turns, especially from Auteuil in the lead and French stalwarts Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Sabine Azéma.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

A tour de force remake of Marcel Pagnol's 1940 film about love, loss, class, forgiveness, and transformation that come from the heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5