Genial, bumbling Monsieur Hulot loves his top-floor apartment in a grimy corner of the city, and cannot fathom why his sister's family has moved to the suburbs. Their house is an ultra-modern nightmare, which Hulot only visits for the sake of stealing away his rambunctious young nephew. Hulot's sister, however, wants to win him over to her new way of life, and conspires to set him up with a wife and job.
Satire is not barbed or vicious and everybody can laugh at it and themselves. There's expert blocking out of the characters, creative use of sound, and eschewing of all useless dialog.
– ,
Variety,
10 Sep 2008
rotten:
Facing it squarely, My Uncle is perceptibly contrived when it lingers too long and gets too deeply into the dullness of things mechanical. After you've pushed one button and one modernistic face, you've pushed them all.
– Bosley Crowther,
New York Times,
20 May 2003
fresh:
Jacques Tati is the great philosophical tinkerer of comedy, taking meticulous care to arrange his films so that they unfold in a series of revelations and effortless delights.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
8 Jul 2003
fresh:
Unforgettably funny, wonderfully observed, and always technically brilliant.
– Derek Adams,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
No less a masterpiece than its Gallic-tongued cousin.