User reviews

What a surprise! I started watching, not expecting very much, thinking that I'd be turning it off at any time, but it held my attention for the full two hours. The opening scene I thought was going to mean a comedy was on its way, but what followed, while nothing like a tragedy, was something much more complicated. The storyline is odd, and the way characters treat each other is odd, too, and I think it was that oddness as much as anything else that kept me watching, as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing and hearing. Your emotions are played with as you watch the struggles of a rough-edged woman barely getting by in a small town in rural Quebec, usually sympathizing with her but more than once wanting to shake her for her bad choices. The acting is first-rate, with lots of close-ups of the characters -- the woman and her young daughter, who are the focus of everything -- undergo intense emotions.

For those of you who don't know Rejean Ducharme, he is an enigmatic writer from Québec (no one has ever seen him publicly), and LES BONS DÉBARRAS is his only official screenplay (notice that LÉOLO, another great Quebec film, by the late Jean-Claude Lauzon, was freely inspired by the first book of Ducharme).

Rarely have we seen dialogues so powerfull and a cast so truely touch by the emotions they play. Marie Tifo and a young Charlotte Laurier are brilliant. After seeing this film, you will compare every child actor with Charlotte who delivers nothing less that the best performance from a child, period. Gilbert Sicotte is also excellent.

And less not forget the discreet but touching direction by Francis Mankiewicz.

This is the best Québécois movie because it is the most human and poetic one of all.

10/10

This is definitively the best film ever made in Quebec . It is literally a study on the human behaviour , on the emotions , on life and death .

A little girl who always wants to have the upper hand and who always says what she thinks ( played by Charlotte Laurier , fantastic ),lives with her mother and Guy , the mother's brother, played by Germain Houde , who delivers an impressive performance of an alcoholic simpleton.

The screenplay and dialogues are from novelist Rejean Ducharme , which we can recognize the highly ironic tone . Ducharme fans will undoubtly fall in love with this film .

It is a beautiful masterpiece , lyrical , poetic , touching ,with ironic humour and unforgettable scenes . Its filmed in a way that makes the audience think .I give a 9/10