Metacritic reviews

Splendidly acted and directed.

Works as both an adaptation and a movie in its own right

La Petite Lili isn't conventional or crowd-pleasing enough to appeal to audiences who like their foreign films safely sentimental, but it's also not daring enough for those who expect art to hurt a little.

For all its spikiness, there are hurdles that La Petite Lili cannot overcome. Abridged and abbreviated, Chekhov's leisurely philosophic reflections evoke a musty aroma of pressed flowers in a scrapbook that is out of tune with the times.

The film is, in fact, an adaptation of Anton Chekov's "The Seagull." This provenance also explains why there's something slightly old-fashioned about the whole business.

Miller and coscreenwriter Julien Boivent have a gift for aphoristic, if glib, dialogue, and Nicole Garcia and Ludivine Sagnier do their best to flesh out hopelessly one-dimensional characters.

Miller takes Chekhov's themes and checks them off, but he never gets under his egocentric characters' thin skins.

Because the talk never gets beyond statement making, and because the characters emit none of Chekhov's radiantly lived-in soulfulness, there's plenty of time to appreciate the sun-kissed landscape.

Viewers are left wondering just why they should care about them and the rest of the film's one-dimensional characters.

True to Chekhov's dictum, a gun does fire near the end -- by which point eye-rolling audience members may be up in arms too.