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Movies / On DVD / One Day You'll Understand
One Day You'll Understand

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One Day You'll Understand (2008)

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Reviews Counted:19

Fresh:12

Rotten:7

Average Rating:6.4/10

Runtime: 90 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: Paris, 1987. As the trial of Lyon’s Gestapo head Klaus Barbie plays out on television, French businessman Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot) finds himself distracted from his work... Paris, 1987. As the trial of Lyon’s Gestapo head Klaus Barbie plays out on television, French businessman Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot) finds himself distracted from his work and increasingly obsessed with piecing together the truth about his family’s history. As he sorts through photographs, letters and memorabilia, the documents he discovers – including an Aryan declaration written by his father – tell of the fate that befell his parents during the war, and he is quick to rush to judgment. But to his frustration, his mother Rivka (Jeanne Moreau) has shuttered away her past and refuses to share any memories with him.

With tensions growing between Victor and his sister Tania (Dominique Blanc) – who defends their father’s declaration and mother’s silence – his wife (Emmanuelle Devos) and children accompany him on a visit to the tiny village where Rivka’s parents were forced to hide during the war. And as Victor finally begins to reconcile himself with his family’s fate, Rivka makes the decision to confide her past to the members of her family who may have a chance at shaping the future.--© Kino International [More]

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Dominique Blanc

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Dominique Blanc

Director: Amos Gitai

Director: Amos Gitai
Producer: Serge Moati, Nicole Collet
Story: Dan Franck, Jerome Clement
Composer: Louis Sclavis
Studio: Kino International

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Reviews for One Day You'll Understand

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1 - 19 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Reviews
Tomatometer Critic Review Category
tomato
3/4

Wesley Morris

[Director] Gitai works here from Jérôme Clément’s 2005 book about his mother. He whips something rich and delicate out of the story’s dramatic spareness.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 23 2009 01:48 PM

Boston Globe

splat
2/4

Mick LaSalle

The intelligence and commitment of One Day You'll Understand can't be doubted, but as drama, the film barely registers.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Feb., 27 2009 02:32 PM

San Francisco Chronicle

splat
2/5

Gary Goldstein

The chance to watch the grand Jeanne Moreau is this flat memoir's saving grace.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Dec., 05 2008 01:52 PM

Los Angeles Times

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Stanley Kauffmann

One Day You'll Understand is not exclusively a picture about the Holocaust. It is about a contradiction: human discomfort with some truths and human hunger for them.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Nov., 20 2008 12:18 PM

New Republic

tomato
3/4

Jessica Reaves

This is not a movie of big, dramatic revelations; in fact, the notionally elusive truth is pretty obvious from the movie's outset, which makes Victor's quest less about facts and more about principles.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Nov., 13 2008 01:52 PM

Chicago Tribune

tomato

Andrew O'Hehir

Nonetheless, this mesmerizing, flawed, almost Proustian meditation has more to do with the present than the past.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Nov., 07 2008 01:42 PM

Salon.com

splat
2.5/4

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Israeli director Amos Gitai can be one of the world's most graceful and effective filmmakers, but he's equally susceptible to ham-fisted episodes, and his new film is one of them.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Nov., 06 2008 07:04 PM

Combustible Celluloid

tomato
3/4

V.A. Musetto

The film is to be seen for Moreau, a French national treasure, who gives a beautiful, understated performance that transcends the derivative story.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 31 2008 01:19 PM

New York Post

tomato
3.5/5

A.O. Scott

One Day You'll Understand contains no great revelations or surprises, but rather is suffused with a quiet glow of sympathy and enlightenment.

comment Comment | Oct., 31 2008 09:50 AM

New York Times

tomato
8/10

Nora Lee Mandel

Despite the back and forth between awkward and moving, unsubtle and touching, Gitai does make a strong case for personal reexaminations of the past.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 31 2008 05:45 AM

Film-Forward.com

tomato
B

Noel Murray

One Day reaches an emotional level well above Gitai's typical remove.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 30 2008 02:36 PM

AV Club

splat

Donald J. Levit

Accurate in imaging the mystery of man's not fully knowable past, 'One Day You'll Understand' leaves too much distant, unsolved and confused.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 30 2008 01:37 PM

ReelTalk Movie Reviews

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Doris Toumarkine

Drama about a French Jewish family's suffering, secrets, and denials regarding Nazi persecution during the French Occupation is an often disorienting collage of memory shards. But the legendary Jeanne Moreau and other excellent cast help hold interest.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 30 2008 06:56 AM

Film Journal International

tomato
5/6

Mark Holcomb

[A] counterintuitive, diligently understated exploration of the legacy of anti-Semitism in a mixed-religion, middle-class French family.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 29 2008 11:19 AM

Time Out New York

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Andrew Sarris

The casting of 80-year-old Jeanne Moreau provides much of the raison d’être for the project. It is only the latest manifestation of the deep respect the French cinema has always shown for its aging actresses and actors.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 29 2008 10:19 AM

New York Observer

splat
2/4

Bill Weber

In under 20 minutes of screen time, Jeanne Moreau supplies One Day You'll Understand with an otherwise absent emotional weight of reconciliation to the anguished history of WWII France.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 26 2008 02:32 PM

Slant Magazine

splat
C

Harvey S. Karten

Inert performances, an irritating soundtrack, and the lack of resonance of the 'big secret' combine to make viewing a burden.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 14 2008 06:55 PM

Compuserve

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Peter Brunette

Once again, veteran Israeli director Amos Gitai has made a subtle yet powerful and moving film on an aspect of Jewish experience.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 03 2008 03:15 AM

Hollywood Reporter

splat
2/4

David Nusair

...Gitai's penchant for going off on head-scratching tangents is certainly in full force here.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Sep., 08 2008 04:05 PM

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