Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) (2006) Critic Reviews
Metascore®:
Based upon 11 Critic Reviews- Highest Rated
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The first two-thirds of Joyeux Noel are strangely inert, but the film ends with a moving and surprisingly sophisticated meditation on the definition of moral duty.Read the full review
The uncomplicated humanism of Joyeux Noël, with its Christmas message of peace, feels at once irrefutable and refreshing.Read the full review
Joyeux Noël is gritty and disturbing with its extended scenes of war and destruction. It also is emotional, even a touch sentimental.Read the full review
It makes for a fascinating exploration of the human experience.Read the full review
A period drama marbled with humor, bold gestures and bittersweet consequences.Read the full review
It takes an extraordinary film on the order of Joyeux Noel to make it all suddenly vital, immediate and human.Read the full review
Though a painless time-passer, Joyeux Noël ultimately contributes little to the venerable anti-war genre beyond its curious message that to some degree, war is hell because it prevents soldiers from making really neat friends and pen-pals from different counties.Read the full review
With a cast of Scottish, German and French actors all speaking their own language, writer-director Christian Carion has fashioned a deeply moving and uplifting piece.Read the full review
Its sentimentality is muted by the thought that this moment of peace actually did take place, among men who were punished for it, and who mostly died soon enough afterward.Read the full review
If the film's sentiments about the madness of war are impeccably high-minded, why then does Joyeux Noël, an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, feel as squishy and vague as a handsome greeting card declaring peace on earth?Read the full review
