Avis Metacritic

At the end, you're refreshed, like Pauline after she swallows an entire soft drink in one gulp, and it feels terrific.

Disturbing, beautifully acted movie.

Heartfelt and heart-rending performances make all the difference in Pauline and Paulette, a delightfully bittersweet story.

Without condescension, Debrauwer offers comic glimpses into their separate dreams of grandeur, but he lets Pauline's touching simplicity unite them.

Sentimental and has its heart on its sleeve, but never heavy-handedly so, and its delicacy and tenderness will get to you if you give it half a chance.

Plumbs the issue of sibling love and family responsibility in quietly powerful ways, and the performances of the two stars surpass convincing to reach a level of biographical realism.

The film's plainness, and the understated force of van der Groen and Petersen's performances, sharpen its complexity of feeling until all mawkishness is cut away.

The result is something truly special.

There is something disturbing about yet another iteration of what's become one of the movies' creepiest conventions, in which the developmentally disabled are portrayed with almost supernatural powers to humble, teach and ultimately redeem their mentally "superior" (read: morally inferior) friends, family and acquaintances.

Debrauwer's characterization is as sharp and incisive as a butter knife.