A tender and moving drama that deserves wider exposure.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2005

Hard Goodbyes could easily have been maudlin, but isn't. Credit an adult script and realistic acting, especially by Giorgos Karayannis as Elias.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 16, 2005

Panayotopoulou does handle the material with sensitivity, but she relies too much on her young hero's unlikely precocity, which unwittingly diminishes the intensity of a child's very real grief.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 16, 2005

Considering the delicate and weighty subject matter, the film's tone is surprisingly light, sometimes even humorous, which helps to balance the harsh sentiments that death inevitably brings.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 16, 2005

A tender Greek drama documenting a child's disbelief in the face of his father's death.

Full Review | Sep 13, 2005

Goes from being appropriately child-like to simply childish.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 26, 2005

Panayotopoulou's story has the ring of autobiographical truth, getting the details of the period and of childhood in general right at every turn.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 5, 2005

About nothing so much as a soulful kid's first encounter with the most literal and poetic meanings of the word 'gone.'

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

A sublimely subjective journey from denial to acceptance as a 10-year-old boy comes to terms with the finality of death.

| Original Score: B | Apr 21, 2005

Begins to take on an allegorical, global feel.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 12, 2005

Greek director-writer Penny Panayotopoulou's compelling debut feature is a psychological drama about an Athenian family dealing with grief.

| Original Score: B | Feb 23, 2005

Not perfect, exciting, fresh, but well crafted, well acted, and very well directed

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 9, 2005

Alternately whimsical and harsh, Hard Goodbyes probably deserves to be seen as a promising first feature, although it lacks the grace and novelty of a similar movie, My Life As a Dog.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Feb 4, 2005

...has about it the whiff of autobiography, given the specificity of the details and the odd, enchanting drift from an initial tone of social realism toward fantasy.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 17, 2005

With soft heartedness and beautiful imagery, the film aptly captures the feeling of disbelief and aversion that hits children in a time of loss.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 15, 2005

Youngster Giorgos Karayannis is a marvel in this touching Greek drama about a son's devotion to his father.

| Jan 14, 2005

It features an endearing, mature performance from its juvenile lead.

| Nov 29, 2004

Aptly captures the feeling of disbelief and aversion that hits children in a time of loss.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 26, 2004

Ultimately doesn't have anything that I haven't seen before in My Life as a Dog or a hundred other movies just like it.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 23, 2004

A tender, gently paced coming-of-age movie whose strength is its young lead actor.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 9, 2004