Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This love story told strictly through song is super fun to experience for the visuals and memorable score alone. The story, while familiar, provided an ample vehicle for the film to progress. Catherine Deneuve became a major star as a result of her participation in this film and she is a captivating presence throughout. Nino Castelnuovo as her true love also does a great job in that her really allows her to shine. The Michele Legrand score is highly emotive and memorable. This film is very unique and original and definitely work checking out. Seeking it out on the big screen is also worth the effort to fully appreciate.

The teenage daughter of a woman running a financially-troubled umbrella shop in Cherbourg conflicts with her mother. The slightly older boy working as an auto mechanic at a garage is living with his elderly and sickly godmother, who has a young woman come in occasionally to take care of her, has conflicts of his own. He and the daughter meet and fall in love...but as expected, the boy gets drafted and has to serve in the military for two years with war in Algeria going on. They must separate, but will the romance last? Especially with the daughter unexpectedly pregnant and a rich man also desiring to marry the daughter? The movie has its dialogue entirely sung, and the sets are in very bright colors. Despite this, the characters and their interactions are all believable, and the story line, though not entirely predictable, does follow a logical path. The movie is basically a confection, but it works.

Writer-director Jacques Demy collaborated with composer Michel Legrand to create this 1950s French love story presented entirely in song. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo are the young lovers forced apart by circumstance and fate. She's the daughter of a shop-owner who sells umbrellas in the town of Cherbourgh; he's a handsome 20-year-old service station attendant who's been drafted and will be gone for the next two years. Demy cleverly trims his picture with amusingly arty accouterments, which is a good thing considering his thin story (separated into three chapters) has very few characters, an abundance of mother-daughter confrontations (set to music) and simplistic story contrivances. The picture did give us the Oscar-nominated song "I Will Wait For You", which is more memorable than the actual film. *1/2 from ****

I have always associated my favorite musicals with Broadway, apart from this one, which is up there with my top three favorites. Filed as a love story, it also makes my top three. And Catherine Deneuve? She's definitely in my top three most beautiful actresses of all time. Then there's Michel Legrand, my second favorite composer (after Chopin, and if you must know, the third ones would be the Lennon/McCartney collaboration). How does one get so willingly hooked to a movie? Just sample the first five minutes of it, you don't even wait for the first lines of song to realize you're in for a gem of a film. Before you hear any of it, the sets are bound to get you. For the colors, those vibrant, palpable colors are a veritable visual feast. And have I mentioned the divine Catherine Deneuve? If there's anything most likely to distract your attention from the sets, it would be her presence. And last, but not least, for long after you may have forgotten the plot, you will never forget this: that melodious, hummable music, a song most of us associate with having heard from childhood, that beautifully threads the scenes of the story together--and you have the perfect musical. The most poignant love story (reminiscent of Splendor in the Grass, another coming-of-age film with a most genetically- blessed lead actors), with an ending that breaks the heart, but one which I completely approve of!