Les bien-aimés 2011

A.O. Scott, New York Times: "Beloved" is at once whimsical and heartfelt, alive to the absurdity and perversity of amorous behavior and also to the gravity and intensity of human emotions. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Skips around the decades, taking a minimalist approach to history - mostly by demonstrating how recent traumatic events have inconvenienced the love lives of its central characters. Read more

Alison Willmore, AV Club: Beloved is a tenderly sincere musical that celebrates love even as it acknowledges the ways in which it can sometimes lead to tragedy. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Honore's a genuinely gifted eccentric of a filmmaker, but on the evidence of "Beloved," he could use a nap. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Characters traipse around city streets singing 60s-style pop tunes in this ungainly, overconceived musical. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: "Beloved" is both broody and bright, steeped in amour in all its Gallic permutations - mad, destined, unrequited, sustaining. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: This stylish film is enormous fun, whirling and warbling across four decades of amour. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Lung cancer, coronary thrombosis and French pop music: Two of these things will kill you, but the third will make you wish you were dead. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's a film full of turbulence and passion, as a mother and daughter embark on their separate journeys - their pasts and futures, their happiness and sorrow, intertwined. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The plot of "Beloved," I'm afraid, may try your patience. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Beloved" has a big spirit and, somewhere along the line, it becomes a big film. Read more

Jon Frosch, The Atlantic: Honore's heartbreaking, gloriously directed and performed musical suggests that this most hipsterish and Parisian of French filmmakers is best when he sets his stories to song. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: The early scenes with Sagnier have real verve, and Honore handles his first few shifts in time well, but ennui sets in with yet another chapter bringing songs of decreasing quality and events of increasing tiresomeness. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: "Your charm is quickly fading," quips one character to another. You'd think she was speaking to someone behind the camera. Read more

Boyd van Hoeij, Variety: The carefree love life of a 1960s French mother is daringly juxtaposed with the amorous travails of her daughter several decades later in Beloved. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: A sprawling mess of multiple romantic triangles in which all the angles are obtuse. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Somehow manages to feel sprawling and epic, while at the same time presenting an intimately observed view of two women's love lives. Read more