''Declaration of War'' (french: La Guerre est déclarée) is a 2011 French film directed by

Valérie Donzelli Valérie Donzelli (born 2 March 1973) is a French actress, filmmaker and screenwriter. She has directed five feature films and two short films since 2008, including the film ''Declaration of War'' (2011). Early life Valérie Donzelli was born i ...

, and written by and starring Donzelli and

Jérémie Elkaïm Jérémie Elkaïm (born 29 August 1978) is a French actor, screenwriter and film director best known for his role in ''Presque rien'' (US title: ''Come Undone'', 2000). In the film, he plays Mathieu, a troubled, emotionally fragile teen who fi ...

; it is based on actual events in their lives together, when they were a young couple caring for their dangerously ill son. It was released on the 31 August 2011 and received very positive reviews; Allociné, a review aggregation website gave it an average of 4.3 stars out of five. ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'' gave it a full five stars, saying "Against cancer, an undoubtable force of happiness". The film was selected as the French entry for the

Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.

Cast

as Juliette *

as Roméo Benaïm * César Desseix as Adam (18 months old) * Gabriel Elkaïm as Adam (8 years old) * Brigitte Sy as Claudia, Roméo's mother *

Elina Löwensohn Elina Löwensohn (born 11 July 1966) is a Romanian-American actress. She had roles in the films ''Simple Men'' (1992), ''Schindler's List'' (1993), ''Amateur'' (1994), '' Nadja'' (1994) and '' The Wisdom of Crocodiles'' (1998). Life and career L ...

as Alex, Claudia's wife * Michèle Moretti as Geneviève, Juliette's mother *

Philippe Laudenbach Philippe Laudenbach (born 31 January 1936) is a French actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films since 1963. Career Nephew of Pierre Fresnay (born Peter Laudenbach), Philippe is formed to the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts. He ...

as Philippe, Juliette's father *

Bastien Bouillon Bastien Bouillon is a French actor. He has appeared in more than 30 film and television productions since 2009. He is the son of the stage director Gilles Bouillon. Filmography Theatre References External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bou ...

as Nikos * Béatrice De Staël as Doctor Prat, pediatrician *

Anne Le Ny Anne Le Ny (born 16 December 1962) is a French actress, screenwriter and film director. Filmography Actress Screenwriter or director Theatre References French film directors French women film directors Living people French fil ...

as Doctor Fitoussi, neurologist * Frédéric Pierrot as Doctor Sainte-Rose, surgeon * Blanche Gardin as The Hostess Necker *

Jennifer Decker Jennifer Decker (born 28 December 1982) is a French actress. She is best known for the role of Lucienne in the 2006 American film ''Flyboys (film), Flyboys''. Life and career Jennifer began her theatrical career at an early age. At 18 she wa ...

as A girl at the feast of Jeanne

Reception

Critical response

''Declaration of War'' has an approval rating of 86% on

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, based on 43 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10.

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generaly favourable reviews".https://www.metacritic.com/movie/declaration-of-war?ftag=MCD-06-10aaa1c

Awards and nominations

References

External links