Critic Reviews

Marie’s Story will feel familiar, which is mostly a tribute to the enduring power of Helen Keller’s biography.

To play Marie today, Améris found the non-actor Ariana Rivoire at the Institute for the Deaf. And Rivoire is a revelation — showing what it's like to be in, and then break out of, a world of total darkness and silence.

Based on a true story that's perhaps less famous than some others but just as intriguing, this serious-minded — no Helen Keller jokes, please — period film is nonetheless quite entertaining and, finally, moving.

A quarter-century ago, such an assured, emotionally satisfying French offering as this could have done significant business in the States, the way films like “Jean de Florette” once did.

Anyone who’s seen The Miracle Worker in any form will find Marie’s Story very familiar, and even perhaps a bit rote.

Though based on a remarkable true story, this clichéd tear-jerker is barely interested in Marguerite’s revolutionary teaching methods, focusing instead on the intensity of her connection to Marie.

The movie by Jean-Pierre Améris milks the tears in the home stretch, making little effort to hold the melodrama at bay. The result is a story that everyone can feel great about feeling terrible about.

At its most provocative, it suggests a tension between spirit and flesh in the nun's maternal feelings. Rather than examine that friction, Améris pushes the narrative in predictable directions.

The film is unable to specify narrative urgency beyond a broad sense of "based on a true story" pathos that's by turns hollowly uplifting and tragic.