I really loved this movie and don't quite understand why there are no more than 2 reviews to date.
The theme, of someone rising from the dead and turning the lives of the living upside down, has been tried many, many times, in some cases more successfully than in others. I think this film definitely belongs to the former category.
The film often leaves you puzzled as to what is going on, but without leaving you lost and frustrated, as is sometimes the case with such super-natural films. The whole movie felt magical to me, just like the little toy in the story.
Julie Gayet gives a very convincing performance, of a mother of an 8-year old son, left distraught by the untimely death of her husband, but willing - for her own as well as her son's sake - to move on in life, and while doing so, finding unexpected love, but then not able to cope when her late husband suddenly makes a comeback to the world of the living.
Pierre Richard as the quirky old Victor gives a superb performance. He seems eccentric - if not a little crazy - but warms the viewers' hearts at the same time. And he parts with wisdom that I found very touching. The way the plot unfolds can, in my view, only work in a French film, and it is what I like so much about French movies.
Whether this film got so few reviews because it is very little known, or whether nobody who saw it found it worthy of a review, I don't know, but I for myself loved it. And it put my wife and me in a very magical mood for the rest of the evening.
