The smallest detail is given due weight, and we feel we begin to know these people. The cast seldom puts a foot wrong. Denis has never made a more resonant film.
Comment
07/10/09
35 Shots of Rum (2009)
94
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:36
Fresh:34
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.8/10
Consensus: This slow-moving French family drama is rich, complex, subtle and emotionally eloquent.
Rated: 12A
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:10-07-2009
Synopsis: “The warmth radiating from 35 Shots of Rum, smoother than the finest liquor, reminds viewers how rarely movies capture the easygoing love embodied in a functional family, with all its support and... [More]
Starring: Alex Descas, Mati Diop, Nicole Dogue, Gregoire Colin
Director: Claire Denis
Reviews for 35 Shots of Rum
Superbly played and realised, this stays with you.
07/10/09
Top CriticDenis magically evokes a liberal meditation on family, harmony, loyalty and belonging and their corollaries – loss, transgression, loneliness and separation – and achieves a sweet unity.
07/10/09
Top CriticClaire Denis has assembled a simple yet achingly touching little drama. On the surface it looks as if hardly anything's happening, but submit to the gently fluid style and it turns out everything is going on.
07/10/09
Top CriticThe magic of Claire Denis’s exquisite 35 Shots of Rum is that although so much is left unsaid, it’s one of the most emotionally eloquent films you’ll see this year.
07/10/09
Top CriticThis outstanding new film from Claire Denis demonstrates her fluency and mastery in the kind of movie-language that is rich, quietly complex and subtle - and very un-Hollywood.
07/10/09
Top Critic35 Shots of Rum draws its power from silences, glances, hugs and smiles - all of which speak more eloquently than any dialogue. It's a profound, discreet, hugely touching work that resonates in the memory.
07/10/09
Top CriticEstablishes an immediate and intense fascination for its characters and their lives that it never for a second loses.
07/10/09
This is supremely confident film-making, determinedly un-formulaic and populated with believable, three-dimensional people.
07/10/09
The key events in this low-key film occur off-screen, but Denis and regular cinematographer Agnès Godard have the priceless ability to infuse the everyday with a magical dimension.
07/10/09
Warm, affectionate and oddly absorbing.
07/10/09
A couple of shots of rum would have been a good idea before watching this slow-burning French drama - it would have livened things up.
07/10/09
Ingrid Caven (ex-Fassbinder diva) turns kitchen-sink realism to kitsch and surrealism Europudding-style. Credits reveal that the film had German co-funding. Sometimes money talks and the language is Gobbledegook.
07/10/09
Claire Denis's film-making is so elliptical you sometimes feel at a loss to know what's going on, but the mood – cool, meditative, unhurried – beckons you along insistently.
07/10/09
This film is the work of a cinematic master. Writer/director Claire Denis handles the ebb and flow of everyday human existence with such tenderness and truth that her film feels like a great warm hug.
07/10/09
Impressively directed, superbly acted drama, though the painfully slow pacing and relative lack of dialogue may prove off putting to some.
07/10/09
Denis uses her typically moody, vague style to explore multicultural France with dark humour and warm emotion.
07/10/09
At times it's so slow-moving, it's more like 35 Spoonfuls of Treacle. But writer-director Claire Denis has a knack for picking out special moments of closeness.
07/10/09
In spare, poetic fashion, Denis shows each character drifting in different directions.
07/10/09
I liked these characters, and suddenly not having them in my life anymore, simply because Denis has decided to start the closing credits, devastated me.
10/29/09
Latest News for 35 Shots of Rum
September 17, 2009:
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