Synopsis
Paul is preparing to leave Tajikistan, while thinking back on his adolescent years. His childhood, his mother's madness, the parties, the trip to the USSR where he lost his virginity, the friend who betrayed him and the love of his life.
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Cast
- Quentin DolmaireYoung Paul Dédalus
- Lou Roy-LecollinetEsther
- Mathieu AmalricPaul Dédalus
- Dinara DrukarovaIrina
- Léonard MattonWilliam
- Cécile Garcia-FogelJeanne Dédalus
- Irina VavilovaM-me Sidorov
- Françoise LebrunRose
- Olivier RabourdinAbel Dédalus
- Elyot MilshteinMarc Zylberberg
Recommendations
- 91
The Playlist
The film doesn't reinvent the wheel: it is, ultimately, a middle-class-white-boy coming-of-age tale of the kind that the cinema of France, and elsewhere, has never been lacking. But it's written, shot, cut and performed with such palpable joy, intelligence and warmth that it ends up feeling entirely fresh. - 91
Consequence
Arnaud Desplechin delivers a thrilling reminiscence that romanticizes and believes in youth’s ungraceful but intense splendors. - 90
Screen Daily
Arnaud Desplechin’s My Golden Days is touching, involving and very well acted. - 90
Variety
Desplechin perfectly times the moment when drollery ends and anguish begins, and it’s that sense of vulnerability that lends the film an unexpected emotional force as it moves toward its return-home epilogue. - 90
Village Voice
There is serious pain in this movie — pain that endures throughout the years — but also a sincere love for life lived, and life remembered. - 88
New York Post
Desplechin draws uniformly superb performances from his young cast, making the coming-of-age genre seem fresh and vital. - 83
The Film Stage
A coming-of-age film with a broader perspecttive is always welcome, and it paradoxically makes this as evocative and convincing a portrait of youth as the best work of François Truffaut. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
My Golden Days more often privileges emotional truths over historical veracity. This helps not only to make the past dilemmas of the protagonists feel more immediate and real, but also suggests how, looking back, we see our lives as a succession of emotional experiences, not dry historical facts.
