The photography is stunning, and the essential sweetness of the story should ensure that younger audiences at least are riveted.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 30, 2020

Sure, it's important to teach children the difference between wild and tame animals, but is this a lesson that modern suburban children, who barely see a squirrel, should learn like this?

| Feb 10, 2019

A gentle, rambling adventure in the wild.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 3, 2011

Falls shy of being either a captivating tale for kids or an enlightening documentary for adults.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 30, 2009

The result is Nature seen through the eyes of a solitary and fanciful child with Jacquet intensifying the theatricality of it all by playing around with scale, amplifying every sound and raising the wildlife count.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 17, 2009

The Fox and the Child is more than a wildlife documentary. It invites us to contemplate alternative worlds of sensation and experience, to enter the consciousness of other species, to explore our contacts with them.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 17, 2009

There's plenty of scope for sentimental tears, but I hope most children will go away with something punchier - a longing to observe the natural world in this much detail, and a new respect for the difference between owning something, and loving it.

| Jul 10, 2009

It's very beautiful, but it's so contrived.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 8, 2009

Luc Jacquet doesn't do great narration, but he does animals really well.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 8, 2009

A strange mix of doco/fairy tale, this film does have beautiful cinematography but is let down by inconsistencies in tone.

| Jul 7, 2009

Exquisite cinematography and a beautifully told story about the unlikely friendship between a little girl and a wild fox, make this a magical experience

| Jul 4, 2009

If, for example, Alvin and the Chipmunks is a children's movie, then The Fox and the Child is a children's movie for children who'd prefer to hang out at the local arthouse cinema than at the multiplex.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 1, 2009

The Tally-ho! brigade may need an extra snifter of sherry if they see Jacquet's new film. It's about to do for foxes what Babe did for pigs back in 1995.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Aug 11, 2008

Gorgeously scenery and a virtually dialog-free script lends this film an almost fairy tale quality that makes the most of the astonishing camerawork. And this almost makes it bearable as it heads into a rather cloying finale.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 8, 2008

Children will undoubtedly adore the film, and the local tourist board will probably have to take its phones off the hook.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 8, 2008

Kate Winslet does a syrupy voice-over to this bedtime story, but given what we know of foxes, it's a tough one to swallow.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 8, 2008

There seems no other reason to tell this rambling, glutinous tale - other than for us to go "ooh, aah" at the scenery, the seasons and the melting-eyed close-ups of Reynard the heart-throb.

| Aug 8, 2008

There is little insight into the life of this resourceful creature and it certainly will not educate your cubs.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 8, 2008

The main problem is it's so incredibly slow as we're forced to endure the unnamed girl's patient attempts to gain the animal's trust, while the youngster herself is too wide-eyed for her own good.

| Aug 8, 2008

This isn't Fantastic Mr Fox, it's just an ordinary vixen who I wished would stay well away from this tiresome child, and let her make some friends with someone of her own age and species.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 8, 2008