MovieLine: Parts of Valérie Donzelli’s Declaration of War, which details a young couple’s struggle to keep their lives together in the face of their child’s illness, are bracingly intimate and believable. Yet there’s so much filmmaking packed around them that they flicker and fade before you know it: Between the Truffautish voice-overs and Jacques Demy-style musical interludes, it’s a wonder anyone in this sort-of drama, sort-of comedy ever gets any rest.
Trendy Gamers: Declaration of War was one of 2012’s finalist’s for a spot in the Oscar’s best foreign film category; it fell understandably fell short though. It’s a boldly realized narrative that adheres to the rules of French new-wave filmmaking, randomly breaking the familiar cadence of a medical drama with some visual and auditory pizzazz. It’s a slightly fictionalized autobiography that suffers from being too whimsical when there surely had to be a plethora of suffering to draw from to balance out this film’s tonal equilibrium.
AV Club: When the young couple whose relationship is the fond focus of Declaration Of War first meet in a punk club, they discover to their amusement that they are Romeo (Jérémie Elkaïm) and Juliette (Valérie Donzelli). “So we’re doomed to a terrible fate?” Elkaïm asks before planting a kiss on Donzelli. As it turns out, they are, though not one involving feuding families and faked deaths. They fall in love, move in together, and have a son, who isn’t yet 2 years old when he’s diagnosed with a brain tumor.
NY Times: “Declaration of War” is a manic sprint whose style and momentum recall French New Wave films like “Jules and Jim” revved up to double-time. On paper, the story of Juliette (Valérie Donzelli) and Roméo (Jérémie Elkaïm), bohemian Parisians whose 18-month-old son develops a brain tumor, may sound depressing. But the emergency channels their energy into an exhilarating race against time. A crucial insight of the movie, directed by Ms. Donzelli, is that a crisis can infuse daily life with a surreal, zany urgency.
