With the exception of taking another look at ‘mod’ sixties fashion, this lightweight combination of ‘arty’ photography and breathless Legrand music (Paul Muriat [Love is Blue] should have released the soundtrack, he would have been perfect) has nothing to recommend it.

At least if you buy the DVD, you can turn it off. The first time I saw it, I was in a theater. Lots of others were leaving this ‘acclaimed restoration’, but I stayed to the end, trying to understand all the fuss.

I’m still stumped to this day.
Rating: 1 / 5

For several years, my husband had been telling me how wonderful this was, so, I bought it for him for Xmas, and settled back to enjoy. My husband loved it, finding it very moving. I found it peculier, not relating to any of the characters, and thinking that the music was dreadful – it seemed to be the same tune most of the way through.
Rating: 1 / 5

This is a tribute to the sappiness of the early 1960s, a juvenile melodrama, wholly predictable, sung in French. The three or so Michel Legrand songs are beautiful, and they are hammered at you over and over until you no longer care.

The actors should get much credit (the parts are extremely high), and the photography is good. Buy the CD and skip the soap opera.
Rating: 3 / 5

I enjoyed this movie. The characters were appealing, the story was relatable, the period style is nostalgic, I cared about these people. But, as an opera, it falls flat.

In operas or musicals, singing’s the thing. In this opera, what the orchestra plays is far more interesting than what the singers sing. Although a novelty, it would have made no difference if the dialogue were spoken or sung. That does not make a good opera.

The constume designer had a similar problem–having to work around the wild colors and patterns of the wallpaper in the umbrella shop and apartment. Which is more important…the clothing or the wall covering? Which is more important…the singer’s part or the orchestral background?

Still, it was an entertaining and enjoyable film. The fact that it’s an opera is meaningless.
Rating: 3 / 5

This is a French release with subtitles in English for the American viewing public. It is a grand production of Michel Legrand’s marvelous score, which makes me wish for the old Maurice Chevalier French-style singing as in ‘Gigi.’ It is termed a ‘movie operetta’ in which all the dialogue is turned itno lyrics, completely “singing” no talk. The video realese in 2001 is the restored version in candy-colored scenes of the enigma of a young pregnant, unmarried woman left behind in the Fifties. Now, they are called ’single mothers;’ how times have changed!

This one is the daughter of the owner of an umbrella shop in Cherbourg, France. It almost always happened to the most popular and best-dressed girls who were turned into ‘fallen women’ who, in USA had to drop out of school. It is the norm now to have indiscriminate sex whatever the age, nad who cares if you get ‘caught’? Some take the easy way out, abortion. Back then, that was not an option.

The music was sweeping and kept the action going. The ‘Phantom of the Opera’ out last year was almost such a device with mostly singing. The plot is sometimes hard to figure out with no dialogue to help along.
Rating: 3 / 5