Synopsis
In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', middle-aged Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. His ex-wife, Louise, asks their estranged son, Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the Canadian healthcare system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while reuniting some of Remy's old friends, including Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude, who return to see their friend before he passes on.
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Cast
- Rémy GirardRémy
- Stéphane RousseauSébastien
- Marie-Josée CrozeNathalie
- Dorothée BerrymanLouise
- Louise PortalDiane
- Dominique MichelDominique
- Pierre CurziPierre
- Yves JacquesClaude
- Marina HandsGaëlle
- Sophie LorainFirst Lover
Recommendations
- 88
Rolling Stone
It's a feast of smart, sexy, glorious talk. The Oscar for best foreign film belongs right here. - 88
ReelViews
Although the specter of death hovers over the entire film, it is neither a grim nor a depressing experience. Arcand has injected a great deal of wit into the movie, and it meshes perfectly with the anticipated pathos. - 80
Variety
A full-bodied, funny and gloriously unpretentious ode to family, friendship and the meaning of life, The Barbarian Invasions is solidly entertaining, sharply written and genuinely touching. - 80
The New Yorker
The Barbarian Invasions might be called an idyll of death. Without excessive sentiment (but without slighting sentiment, either). [24 November 2003, p. 113] - 80
L.A. Weekly
A reunion movie, and while it's often very funny, it has none of the self-satisfied piety or strenuous jokiness of "The Big Chill." Its mood shifts between defiant exuberance and wistful contemplation, but it's never mawkish. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Bristling but finally surprisingly moving film. - 67
Entertainment Weekly
I kept wondering how Arcand could have chosen as his generational representative a man not just flawed in his hedonism but one so fundamentally lacking in tenderness for others. - 63
Premiere
Girard gives feisty life to the battle-weary professor, but Rousseau just follows the drill--he is glass-eyed to the point of distraction. And for all its intellectual maneuvering, the film never regains the simple power of its opening salvo.
