Rating: 
Summary: Le Meilleur!
Review: À travers le récit d'une petite fille qui ne parvient pas à accepter la mort de sa mère, le réalisateur trace avec une grande finesse un portrait d'enfant. Tournant avec une infinie délicatesse, à l'aide de nombreux gros plans, Doillon parvient admirablement à faire ressortir l'authenticité de ses jeunes protagonistes, dosant avec une rare intelligence gravité et drôlerie. La merveilleuse et adorable Victoire Thivisol porte le film sur ses toutes petites épaules, rendant palpable et presque insoutenable l'immense chagrin de son personnage. Fort heureusement, celui-ci connaît un doux apaisement lors d'une scène finale certes incroyable, mais vivement souhaitée par le spectateur emphatique.
Rating:
Summary: The world from a child's view
Review: If you don't remember what it was like to be 4 (or 5 or 6), this film will remind you! Yes, this film has an entrancing and heart-rendering story. The real achievement is the telling of the story from the child's perspective.
Rating:
Summary: A touching story of a child's venture into life after loss.
Review: This is a story of a small child who must learn to live again after the tragic loss of her mother. She must face her grief alone as her father distances himself from her, expecting her to deal with it with the help of her aunt and cousins. The story is so well done that you feel her pain right along side her. I found myself calling to her to comfort her as her mother would do. She goes to the depths of despair, all the while believing in the goodness of the Lord and the love of her mother, and that is what saves her in the end. I felt as though I had been through an emotional wringer and had come out better for it, and my faith in the human spirit was strengthened by the spirit of a little child. I loved it! END
Rating:
Summary: About belief, magic and coming to terms with grief
Review: This is quite an amazing film; the lead actress is Victoire Thivosol ("Chocolat"--Anouk) who gives an award-winning performance at the tender age of 4 years old. She plays Ponette, the young daughter of a woman killed in an auto accident. Her father, unable to deal well with the loss himself, leaves Ponette at an aunt's and ultimately at a children's school. During the school days and the weekends with her cousins, Ponette deals with the horrendous loss. She seeks her own form of belief, and is bumped around by all the other children, who good-naturedly or not try to share their own beliefs and magic gestures to make sense of the world. The ending doesn't please everyone but I liked it, especially for the cameo role played by Marie Trintignant. The camera angle is interesting throughout--tight and close and at child-level. We see the world up close and at Ponette's viewpoint, adding to the feeling of being overwhelmed and buffeted by life. This film is well-deserving of the many awards it received and Victoire Thivisol is nothing short of amazing. Definitely see this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good film, story, plot twist, & acting
Review: I discovered this movie somewhat by accident. I was impressed by all the actors and actresses in the recent movie release "Chocolat" staring Juliette Binoche, so I looked up their previous film history. One of the impressive roles played in Chocolat was that of the young daughter, Anouk, played excellently by Victoire Thivisol. Due to her age I figured this was probably her first film. But when I looked up her history, much to my surprise I see that she had already won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her role as Ponette in this movie! I was impressed with the honesty of emotions between the children in this movie as Ponette slowly comes to terms with her mother's death. The film follows Ponette through this painful process of loss, disbelief, belief, faith, and childhood perception of life, death, and the afterlife. The film portrayed this process from a child's eyes extremely well and gives the rest of us pause for thought and reflection at times as well. There are a couple of well done twists in the movie that are very effective (can't say more without giving too much away). Though sad at times, the film ends on an upbeat note with a positive message. [Those who may find the film slightly slow at times will be repaid for their patience during the last third of the movie] Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: One terrific film!
Review: I did not expect this movie to be as good as it turned out to be. Yes, it's a serious film. Yes, it has sub-titles in English, which normally I hate. But the little girl's role in this is excellent. She is very believeable and does an outstanding performance. I kept wondering where this film was going, but in the end an important message is made. "Learn to be happy" in life, and live your life to the fullest. A beautiful film. A moving and worthwhile story.
Rating: 
Summary: yawn
Review: interesting idea, unfortunately all the adults are typical french jerks and the story line just goes around in endless circles. so what?
Rating: 
Summary: Never recommended to anybody !
Review: This is really sick movie .I bought it and through it away.I didn't want to sell it back to anybody to take my money back because I don't want people wantch it.Seems like it was no plot at all- just the experiment on poor little girl how she will face the fact that her mother was killed in a car accident.
It was done like documental movie,it 's looks scary real story.
You " enjoy " to watch how poor little girl cryes, prays to God and loose her faith because He " didn't hear" her prayers , takes all kind of abusement , tests and cruelty from other kids just because they promise she will be able then to to talk with her mother ...
Why it was bad movie ?
Because I don't believe that little girl "played" it.
I think she truly believed in fact her mother died and camera secretly watched all her sobs and tears.
I have my own daughters and I tell you that in this tender age ( 4-5 years old) they can not lie like this , that can not cry like this unless it really HURT.
Also I didn't like that kids shown had been basically by theirself 99%, they did whatever they wanted .
It was unpleasent conversations between them about boyfriends , and wrong touches.
This movie left very bad impression in me ,I suffered with that girl through peeking camera and could not help her at all.
Never ever recommend to anybody to watch!
Rating:
Summary: Almost beyond criticism.
Review: Four-year-old Victoire Thivisol--who looks as if she could have been the model for Renoir's "Girl With a Watering Can"--gave such a moving, luminous, unaffected performance in the 1996 film "Ponette" that some critics accused writer-drector Jacques Doillon of child abuse. Certainly it's agonizing to watch Thivisol's tearful spasms of grief as the eponymous Ponette, a French nursery-school girl whose mother is killed in a car accident. But Thivisol's performance goes beyond realistic crying; the quiet expression on her face as she visits a chapel, trying to make direct contact with Jesus, would do credit to any adult actress. It's difficult to think of any child actor--with the possible exception of Jackie Coogan in "The Kid," a full three-quarters of a century before--giving such a masterful performance at such an extremely tender age. Even Mary Badham in "To Kill a Mockingbird"--as good as she was, and as young as she was--didn't quite achieve the miraculous excellence that Thivisol does. (Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" and Tina Majorino in "When a Man Loves a Woman" were as brilliant as Thivisol, but they were also considerably older.) In his screenplay, Doillon demonstrates almost preternatural insight into "Kidworld"--how children interact with each other, and how they try, with limited experience of the world and contradictory advice from adults, to make sense of life's mysteries and tragedies. And while Ponette's father (Xavier Beauvois) comes across as a jerk, unfortunately it's easy to believe that he--angry, grieving, no longer believing that life has any point--would behave so rudely to his tiny daughter. The film's ending, depending on your viewpoint, is either mawkishly unrealistic or heartrending and deeply satisfying (I take the latter view). "Ponette" is an unforgettable film with an unforgettable lead performance.
Rating:
Summary: Great film-but formatted
Review: This was an overwhelming film when I saw it in the theater. But how is it they formatted it for DVD while VHS is widescreen?! The people at Fox Lorbeer have screwed us again (Wild Reeds). Anyone who wants to format a DVD can do so for themelves with the click of a button. Duh.
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