La Barbe à papa

Paper Moon is reminiscent of classical Hollywood, which was very skilled at working with predictable human emotions and excelled at the craft of filmmaking in its melodramas. However, it had two fundamental flaws, namely sentimentality and the associated naivety in its approach to characters and social reality. Peter Bogdanovich avoided these two flaws in his comedy-drama set in interwar America, creating a charming film about the relationship between a small-time swindler and a sharp-witted orphan, who clearly inherits the influence of her mother, who earns a living through the oldest profession. The itinerant bible salesman and trader of human naivety may think he can quickly get rid of the feisty girl and make a profit, but she has a different idea and the skills to achieve it. It is true that little Tatum O'Neal mostly relies on her defiant expression throughout the film, and I can recall many more convincing child actors, as well as the fact that more could have been done with a similar storyline. Nevertheless, the film is of high quality due to its elegance and lack of pandering. Overall impression: 85%. (06/09/2011)

This black-and-white film about a world made up of conmen and patsies is not black-and-white at all. On the contrary, it is tremendously empathetic and emotionally colourful. (03/07/2022)

A classic tale of an unlikely couple with its greatest added value being the bleak portrayal of an empty and exhausted rural central United States during the Great Depression. For example, the brief passage where the investor waits on the corner of a building for Mozes, who lies battered nearby, recalls in its desolation (despite being set on Main Street) and silence (Mozes lures Addie there with a barely audible hiss) a nightmare scene from Bergman's Wild Strawberries or an episode from Jurek's New Wave films. Yet these are only illustrations of the time. (27/02/2022)