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Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) (2004)

tomatometer

98

Average Rating: 8.7/10
Reviews Counted: 46
Fresh: 45 | Rotten: 1

Jacques Demy elevates the basic drama of everyday life into a soaring opera full of bittersweet passion and playful charm, featuring a timeless performance from Catherine Deneuve.

90

Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 1

Jacques Demy elevates the basic drama of everyday life into a soaring opera full of bittersweet passion and playful charm, featuring a timeless performance from Catherine Deneuve.

audience

86

liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 8,556

My Rating

Movie Info

Jacques Demy's 1964 masterpiece is a pop-art opera, or, to borrow the director's own description, a film in song. This simple romantic tragedy begins in 1957. Guy Foucher (Nino Castelnuovo), a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery (a luminous Catherine Deneuve), an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, he and Geneviève make love.

Oct 28, 1997

Zeitgeist Films

Cast

All Critics (47) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (1) | DVD (14)

Seemingly banal and sentimental on the surface, [director Jacques] Demy has avoided these aspects by tasteful handling and the right balance in emotion, compassion and narrative.

January 11, 2008 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Not only has he resurrected the quaint and artificial device of having the dialogue set to music and unrealistically sung, but he uses this operatic method to tell a story that is so banal... it wouldn't get beyond a reader in Hollywood.

January 15, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comments (6)
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has stood the test of time as beautifully as Deneuve and seems likely to enchant future generations as fully as it has audiences over the past four decades.

April 22, 2004 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A choreography of the everyday timed to Demy's floating long takes and Michel Legrand's at turns jaunty and lachrymose score.

February 10, 2004 Full Review Source: Village Voice | Comment
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Delicately bittersweet.

February 5, 2004 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comment
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A glorious romantic confection unlike any other in movie history.

March 31, 2003 Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A number of different factors raise this absurdly simple scenario to the level of highest excellence, but the chief among them is surely Michel Legrand's iconic score.

December 30, 2010 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy | Comment
Antagony & Ecstasy

A truly unique and wonderful film from a director who stands apart in the French cinema canon.

January 30, 2009 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

Everything in the movie is heightened; watching it, you may feel as if the screen is emitting caffeine.

June 27, 2008 Full Review Source: LarsenOnFilm | Comment
LarsenOnFilm

This bitter-sweet love story set to Michel Legrand's music from writer director Jacques Demy marks the film debut of the then 20 year old Catherine Deneuve, whose delicate beauty and screen presence has enchanted the world ever since

March 23, 2008 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile

Deneuve!

February 21, 2008 Comment
ColeSmithey.com

Modern (for 1964) opera-musical in French is one of a kind.

August 3, 2007 Comment
Video-Reviewmaster.com

Umbrellas makes escapist play with the stuff of kitchen-sink social realism.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Catherine Deneuve won the Best Actress prize at Cannes, but the vocal performances of the entire ensemble are impeccable. Pure cinematic magic.

November 3, 2005 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Deneuve is luminously beautiful throughout, looking fabulously chic even in a maternity dress.

September 18, 2005 Full Review Source: BBC | Comment

Enchanting from first frame to last, Jacques Demy's innovative, Oscar-nominated musical, which stars Catherine Deneuve, celebrates everyday life in song--all the dialogue is delivered through music.

July 14, 2005 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment

Michel Legrand's music is the film's heartbeat, and it soars and dips according to the melodrama.

July 9, 2005 Full Review Source: Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema | Comment
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

As a filmlover, discovering a masterpiece is like finding buried treasure.

April 9, 2005 Full Review Source: Reeling Reviews | Comment
Reeling Reviews

As great as movies get.

January 8, 2005 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | Comment
TheMovieReport.com
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg)

A full-on musical. Singing from start to finish, all 90 minutes. All scored, no talking, total commitment. The production design is also awesome enough to give Wes Anderson a hard-on.How successful is it? Very. It's not without it's flaws, but it's very watchable.

May 5, 2007
kenstachnik

Super Reviewer

The colors, the picaresque locales, the entirely sung dialogue, and the angel that is Catherine Deneuve! "The Umbrellas of Cherbourgh" is 90 minutes of cinematic joy. Simple human melodrama made engaging, profound, and unforgettable in the hands of a master (Demy). If the ending doesn't make you weep then I guess

March 15, 2007
YLOWBSTARDreturns

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Die Regenschirme von Cherbourg (DE)
  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (UK)
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