Synopsis
Occupied France; Lebrac leads a play war between two rival kid gangs, but a girl he likes, who's Jewish, is in danger of being discovered by local Nazi sympathisers. Lebrac and the village must now respond to the reality of what's happening.
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Cast
- Jean TexierLebrac
- Clément GodefroyPetit Bibus
- Théophile BaquetGrand Gibus
- Louis DussolBacaillé, mayor's kid
- Harold WernerLa Crique, smart kid
- Nathan ParentCamus
- Ilona BachelierViolette
- Thomas GoldbergL'Aztec
- Laetitia CastaSimone
- Guillaume CanetL'instituteur
Recommendations
- 60
NPR
War of the Buttons deftly folds France's unsavory collusions into a rather more rousing tale of resistance. I don't doubt that some of these heroics happened. But the way they're framed conveniently takes the edge off saying sorry. - 60
Los Angeles Times
Though it's handled with little subtlety, the way the atmosphere of suspicion in Vichy France filters down to the kids is a smart slant on the material. - 50
San Francisco Chronicle
To be fair, War of the Buttons is a film with a modest agenda. It does not attempt to provide a complete or even vaguely realistic depiction of the rural French resistance in the endgame to World War II. Instead, it provides a fable. - 50
Portland Oregonian
War of the Buttons means well. But ultimately there's only marginally more edge to this treatment of World War II than there is to the average episode of "Hogan's Heroes." - 42
The A.V. Club
The use of a real war to give added emotional heft to this already potentially manipulative story make this film an act of callous calculation behind the beautiful shots of the French countryside. - 40
The New York Times
The slick filmmaking - the movie has a glossy, Hollywood-ready feel that sometimes tips into the cutesy - works against its themes. - 30
Village Voice
Of course, everyone in the film - aside from one or two conspicuous villains - turns out to be a resistant, making an otherwise harmlessly corny movie something slightly more bothersome: a revisionist fantasy of French heroism. - 25
New York Post
The parallels between the kids' war and the real one are made far too obvious by Christophe Barratier, who made the equally treacly "The Chorus" and infests the movie with nonstop musical goo.
