One sings; the other doesn't. None of that matters. In Ms. Varda's world, an ideal yet to be realized, they are the same -- root and stock. They are women.

| Mar 8, 2023

It's light, easy on the eye, and almost guaranteed to leave everyone in an ebullient mood.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 8, 2023

While One Sings, the Other Doesn't is obviously a strong personal statement about women now, it is so beautifully particularized by the storyteller and her principals that it is a demonstration and never a lecture.

| Mar 8, 2023

Unlike films about male friendship, where the two guys do everything together as a team, One Sings, the Other Doesn't offers a more natural, leisurely set of circumstances with the two women drifting in and out of each other's lives.

| Mar 8, 2023

It is ravishingly photographed, starring two warm, accomplished and beautiful actresses, and shot through with a number of flaws at least as interesting as its strengths.

| Mar 8, 2023

It ought to be seen although, while watching it, I'm not always sure why. The reason is that Varda's politics, intelligent and perceptive as they are, sometimes work against her talents as a filmmaker.

| Mar 8, 2023

The sunshiny simplicity of the feminist movement celebrated here is so laughable that you can't hate the picture. You just feel that some of your brain cells have been knocked out.

| Mar 8, 2023

It might sound -- and might well have been -- an artificial and schematic tract. It is not so at all, partly because Varda has constructed it so subtly that it flows as naturally as time itself; partly because of the richness of the two main performances.

| Mar 8, 2023

[The film] has some good sequences in it, is beautifully acted by two actresses who are new to me, is handsomely composed but, at key moments, it's as phony as Soviet neo-realist art. It's of less interest as a movie than as a statement of position.

| Mar 8, 2023

Varda has failed to find a satisfying emotional narrative to communicate her personal conviction.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 8, 2023

Ms. Varda's way is straightforward, leisurely and enjoyable acted by Valérie Mairesse and Thérèse Liotard.

| Mar 8, 2023

It's a very novelistic movie; I haven't seen a film in years with so much plot. But Varda's handling of it is so warm-hearted that one is totally absorbed.

| Mar 7, 2023

Though Valérie Mairesse and Thérèse Liotard are captivating performers and Varda's direction has a sweet, unforced race, the result is a movie whose emotional temperature never rises above lukewarm.

| Mar 7, 2023

Despite its progressive tone, oddly reminscent of Soviet films that used to enthuse over the brighter day ahead and urge their publics optimistically onward, "One Sings" represents a regression in every crucial respect.

| Mar 7, 2023

It's not that Ms. Varda is not well meaning. It's not even that she's out of date, if only because this is a historical tract. It's just that One Sings, the Other Doesn't is so banal.

| Mar 7, 2023

Varda's film celebrates the adolescent viewpoint: One's parents are meanies who don't understand about sex; one's children are toys to be cuddled when needed, like stuffed animals in a dormitory bed. The only honest thing is one's own precious feelings.

| Mar 7, 2023

Varda has composed to a hymn to female sensitivity and solidarity, and although most of the details of action and emotion ring true, the film finally trips up on that old Varda failing, optimism-at-all-costs.

| Mar 7, 2023

A surprisingly lazy and self-indulgent work. Rather than trust her characters to convey the film's content, the director smothers the movie with a voice-over narration that lectures the audience on the Meaning of It All.

| Mar 7, 2023

The drama’s bitter conflicts, grievous losses, and wrenching separations are buoyed by a steady sense of purpose, and its political candor is matched by the aesthetic audacity of its blend of genres, from musical and melodrama to documentary.

| Jul 5, 2022

The anticlimactic epilogue may suggest that these women-and all women-are in a continued state of becoming. This statement speaks to Varda's significance as a filmmaker.

| Jan 11, 2021