Nos âmes d'enfants

A charmingly ordinary story about the relationship between an uncle and a nephew who practically don't know each other, but have to stay together for a while. Mike Mills’s film isn’t exactly original, and the reliance on ordinariness and reality sometimes leads to C'mon C'mon not being wholly entertaining. But the performances of Joaquin Phoenix and Woody Norman, the many believable and visibly lived-in situations, and the realness of the story and its characters make this a drama worth seeing. (22/01/2022)

C'mon C'mon doesn't tell a story that we haven't seen before in another film, but thanks to the smart script and especially the believable performances, this seemingly unremarkable film won me over. The black and white image seems to contradict the fact that life is definitely not black and white, but complicated and layered – full of colours, both happy and sad. We've already had the adult-child combination, where the (routine) life of an adult is suddenly disrupted by a child, with whom things aren't always easy, but this theme is spiced up with conversations with the children and their views on the future, which, while at times seem too adult, are nevertheless believable and honest. A mundane topic, but presented in an unusual way. (08/02/2022)

Anyone who's ever had the privilege must admit how this film manages to be as insufferable as any "househusband in his forties" (TM). You'll find a lot of those shots on the walls of ad agencies, and a lot of those catchy one-liners will be written in the moleskines of people who go to the cinema of the Present and look optimistically at the future because of the results of student polls. An unbearably gentrified film, therapeutically working with the time-honored premise of "solutions in the simplicity and directness of childlike optics". Well, that’s how it goes when children are written by adults. (26/01/2022)

When I started watching this drama, I had no idea what I was getting into. Probably because of that, it took me a while to tune in to the right emotional string to enjoy the story at least a little bit. However, I enjoyed Joaquin Phoenix's sympathetically down to earth performance from the very beginning. I often feel that his acting register is simply inexhaustible. Here he is quite well and very naturally seconded by the young Woody Norman. It's definitely not a movie for everyone, but you should give it a chance. If only, perhaps, for the unusual conversations conducted by the introverted radio journalist Johnny, which can be considered a little probe into the dismal state of mind of the next generation. These conversations indicate quite clearly where we are making unforgivable mistakes. (70%) (11/04/2023)