The Ideal Palace

"The movie is seductively pleasurable, for most of its length. Tavernier corrals the emotions and restricts musical embellishment, concentrating on the powerful landscape and Cheval's life within it. Gamblin's performance is similarly restrained, with a strong sense of the man's turmoil, as well as his kindness. The finale throws some of that out, dipping into sentiment, becoming conventional. That's ultimately an expression of a director's anxiety, a failure to trust we can see, hear and feel all that he intends us to feel. In a movie about a man who trusted himself, that seems an odd failure of nerve."

"Beautifully photographed (cinematography is by Vincent Gallot), the Drôme department of Southeastern France looks just divine, and the direction by Nils Tavernier (son of the great Bertrand Tavernier) is suitably relaxed."

"The Ideal Palace is a likeable, worthy and often quite moving film. Ferdinand Cheval occupies a tiny, mostly unknown speck of history, but his story mightily deserved to be told."