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02/09/06
Hard Goodbyes: My Father (2003)
85 %
Reviews Counted: 27 Fresh: 23 Rotten:4 Average Rating: 7/10
Consensus:
Karayannis handles the lead role well, and the result is a poignant exploration of grief.
Synopsis: 10-year-old Elias, a boy living in Athens, makes a pact with his father to watch on television man's first landing on the moon. The two regale each other with stories of Jules Verne and flights of the imagination. They are adventurers and explorers. But chocolate bars left by a father gone on too... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Reviews
Top CriticClick to read the article
05/01/04
Top CriticClick to read the article
05/01/04
Top Critic
A lovingly observed elegy to lost innocence, conveying the emotional complexity of bereavement with the naiveté of a child's perceptions.
05/01/04
Top Critic Top Critic
Hard Goodbyes could easily have been maudlin, but isn't. Credit an adult script and realistic acting, especially by Giorgos Karayannis as Elias.
09/16/05
Panayotopoulou does handle the material with sensitivity, but she relies too much on her young hero's unlikely precocity, which unwittingly diminishes the intensity of a child's very real grief.
09/16/05
Considering the delicate and weighty subject matter, the film's tone is surprisingly light, sometimes even humorous, which helps to balance the harsh sentiments that death inevitably brings.
09/16/05
Top Critic
A tender Greek drama documenting a child's disbelief in the face of his father's death.
09/13/05
Panayotopoulou’s story has the ring of autobiographical truth, getting the details of the period and of childhood in general right at every turn.
05/05/05
About nothing so much as a soulful kid's first encounter with the most literal and poetic meanings of the word 'gone.'
04/22/05
A sublimely subjective journey from denial to acceptance as a 10-year-old boy comes to terms with the finality of death.
04/21/05
Greek director-writer Penny Panayotopoulou's compelling debut feature is a psychological drama about an Athenian family dealing with grief.
02/23/05
Not perfect, exciting, fresh, but well crafted, well acted, and very well directed
02/09/05
Alternately whimsical and harsh, Hard Goodbyes probably deserves to be seen as a promising first feature, although it lacks the grace and novelty of a similar movie, My Life As a Dog.
02/04/05
...has about it the whiff of autobiography, given the specificity of the details and the odd, enchanting drift from an initial tone of social realism toward fantasy.
01/17/05
With soft heartedness and beautiful imagery, the film aptly captures the feeling of disbelief and aversion that hits children in a time of loss.
01/15/05
Youngster Giorgos Karayannis is a marvel in this touching Greek drama about a son's devotion to his father.
01/14/05
Related Forums
HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER reaches the USA and opens in NYC on September 16, 2005!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER reaches the USA and opens in NYC on September 16, 2005!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER reaches the USA and opens in NYC on September 16, 2005!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
HARD GOODBYES: MY FATHER reaches the USA and opens in NYC on September 16, 2005!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
by: REEL_REVIEWER 9/20/05
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