L'écume des jours 2013

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Gondry has such an incomparable understanding of the way in which strange and unexpected sights can tickle you. What he sometimes lacks as a filmmaker is the awareness that he can tickle an audience to death. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: Maybe these conceits worked in print, but on film it's seven layers of sugar-frosted whimsy that would choke Wes Anderson. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: There's so much of so many flavors of cleverness-a surfeit of surfeits-that sensory overload causes aesthetic suffocation. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Just the first 10 minutes of Michel Gondry's latest pillowcase of whimsy, "Mood Indigo," has more invention than most of the movies you'll see this year. Read more

Boyd van Hoeij, Variety: Sy, Maiga and the others play second fiddle not only to the leads but especially to the visual effects, which are indeed impressive, even if quite a few are reminiscent of Gondry's previous films or musicvids. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Mood Indigo plays like some extreme behavioral experiment, an attempt to determine just how much whimsy, exactly, an audience can endure. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: The inspiration I kept coming back to, with all the stop-motion absurdity and gleeful surreal trappings, is Pee Wee Herman. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Mood Indigo" feels both overdone and undercooked - a hectic but sketchy tale of oddball romance that slides inexorably into tragedy. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: French filmmaker Michel Gondry has demonstrated time and again that, despite his prodigious visual imagination, he can't tell a decent story. Read more

Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly: After a while, all that frivolity starts to collapse under its own weight like a fallen souffle. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: Makes Wes Anderson's movies look like grim cinema verite in comparison. Read more

Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter: Michel Gondry's surreal Gallic dramedy is less a visual feast than an all-you-can-eat buffet, and one that's rather hard to consume. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Though the relentlessness of the on-screen antics threatens to wear you out, the film is over before that can quite happen. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: Mood Indigo is bitter candy, a heartbreaker that uses sugar as a trap. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: A mad mix of what Tex Avery, Rube Goldberg and the silent-film fantasist Georges Melies might have come up with if they'd put their feverish heads together. Read more

Tomas Hachard, NPR: Mood Indigo thrives on clutter and near-total loss of control. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Thank goodness for director Michel Gondry ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), whose vision is so brazenly, enduringly unique. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A wearying experience that resembles being locked in a very small room with an exceptionally bright, pathologically self-absorbed child who will not shut up or calm down. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: It's hard not to take delight in Michel Gondry and his whooshing, bendable universe. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: If it works on you it does so as an exquisitely managed mood piece and an unforgettable visual experience, one that uses fantasy and artifice as a pathway to emotional truth. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: This is a fatalistic fable about aging and loss disguised in ultra-zany wrapping paper. Read more

Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times: The visual pop simply becomes annoying as it truly gets in the way of the storytelling. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Mood Indigo paints a depressing picture about romance but does so with fabulous, although often-exhausting, style. Read more

Todd Gilchrist, TheWrap: "Mood Indigo" perfectly balances Gondry's ornamental creativity and the verite storytelling of his more recent work, combining refined style and raw emotion into one devastating, beautiful package. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: For the most part, Gondry's overwrought visions repel real feeling. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: An elaborate, endless clown-car of whirligig contraptions and unreal images, with little bursts of romantic melancholy peeking out here and there. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: A droll, demented and slightly depressive tale of doomed love. Read more