This is a minor French movie but, thanks to its actors, a modestly engaging one.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 27, 2017

After sketching the differences between Beatrice and Claire, his script gives the two actresses every incentive to banish any thought of lapsing into stereotype.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 25, 2017

Predictability can be forgiven with the luminous talents of Catherine Deneuve and riveting Catherine Frot (Marguerite) as long-estranged women reunited in writer/director Martin Provost's drama.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 29, 2017

... for the most part the veteran actresses salvage the soapy plot by playing their scenes together with a Gallic toughness.

| Sep 14, 2017

[Catherine] Deneuve and [Catherine] Frot, who are if not at the top of their game, then at least never less than fascinating to observe

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 14, 2017

The main reason it does not seem contrived is the performances of Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 24, 2017

Deneuve has made a career out of playing these types of eccentric arch-kooks; she could act the role in her sleep.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 17, 2017

It's a waste of Frot, an actor so gifted she wiped the floor with Meryl Streep in last year's great Florence Foster Jenkins stand-off.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2017

"The Midwife" is one of those movies that could be about anything and you'd watch, so enjoyable are its lead actors.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 3, 2017

With Frot and Deneuve at the top of their respective games, with Gourmet adding tenderly soulful support, The Midwife ends up delivering on all fronts.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 28, 2017

Provost's film is, in the end, a story about attaining the wisdom that comes from forgiveness and the acceptance of those things - namely the past and the future - that none of us can control.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 27, 2017

A closely observed, intelligently imagined and realized presentation of contrasting personalities.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 27, 2017

While there's plenty of wisdom about living in the moment and enjoying life, Provost and the Catherines dole it out subtly and without any mawkish aftertaste.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 21, 2017

Even when portraying the needy, nearly shambolic Béatrice in "The Midwife," Ms. Deneuve is capable of vibrating with an elegance that implies both hauteur and froideur.

| Jul 20, 2017

"The Midwife" is an absorbing meander of a movie, prettily shot and a touch over-scored ...

| Jul 20, 2017

"The Midwife" marks the first time that two grand dames of French cinema - Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot - appear together, and the pairing doesn't disappoint.

| Original Score: A- | Jul 20, 2017

Delight is appropriate throughout.

| Jul 20, 2017

Not a whole lot happens in The Midwife, but there's never a dull moment, thanks to the opposing yet equally stellar performances by the two Catherines in the lead.

| Jul 20, 2017

If not for its performances, the film would belong in the category of Hallmark Channel tearjerkers.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 19, 2017

The bothersome and irritating thing about the way The Midwife is written is that we keep hearing story after story about the shared history between Claire and Béatrice, but we never get a solid idea of what that history was.

| Jul 19, 2017