The Midwife's reviews
Media reviews
The Hollywood Reporter
Provost has once again proven to be a sensitive and sure-handed director.
Time Out
"Sensitive and emotionally intelligent (...) Its depth and texture make this a moving film about families, time passing and shared history (?)"
Screen Daily
"Frot and Deneuve work subtle wonders with their purpose-written roles. [...] The proceedings are shot with a real feel for locations, from ritzy corners of Paris to hospital corridors to the amateur gardens and waterways beyond the capital."
Indiewire
What the film lacks in narrative and visual subtlety it more than makes up for in rich human interaction.
Fotogramas
"At first, the crash [of Béatrice] and Claire is interesting, you can sense a tragedy soaked in hate and compassion, but the movie can't develop it without stepping on the field of the 'feel good movie."
El Periódico
"Director Martin Provost ends up ruining for the sake of sentimentalism the capacity of observation he displays in the first half of the story."
Variety
What do you call a movie about a midlife non-crisis?
The Guardian
"The film is about the complex, fragile relationship between these two older women. But interwoven in their subtle story are broader social themes"
The Wrap
"The bothersome and irritating thing about the way 'The Midwife' is written is that we keep hearing detail after detail and story after story about the shared history between Claire and Béatrice, but we never get a solid idea of what that history was."
New York Times
"Because it is a French film, or rather the kind of French film that wants to serve its sentimentality with a dollop of prestige, 'The Midwife' doesn?t offer an entirely shameless version of the «dying free spirit imbues uptight caretaker with a new lust for life» scenario."
The Telegraph
"It?s Deneuve who musses up the formula and makes the film worth seeing, by generously bringing out her inner vulgarian."
Roger Ebert
"'The Midwife' eventually devolves into a blandly sentimental register in its second half, which prominently features two mediocre subplots: the cute, but dull romance featuring Olivier Gourmet ('The Son') and a half-hearted critique of techno-capitalism in the medical field."
The Washington Post
"Provost?s film is, in the end, a story about attaining the wisdom that comes from forgiveness and the acceptance of those things ? namely the past and the future ? that none of us can control."
The Playlist
"'The Midwife' is often unexpectedly funny and sweet. The film is more a celebration of life and its pleasures, big and small, rather than dwelling on death."