The movie revolves around Paloma, an 11-year-old girl quietly and unhappily living in a luxurious Paris apartment with her family. She plans on ending it all on her upcoming twelfth birthday, but things change when she meets some kindred spirits in her building's grumpy concierge and an enigmatic, elegant neighbor, both of whom inspire Paloma to question her rather pessimistic outlook on life.
A reminder that, sometimes, the movies can get a beloved book exactly right.
Jim Lane
Sacramento News & Review
October 07, 2011
... it's Josiane Balasko that makes it work.
Dennis Harvey
SF360
March 30, 2016
Nicely crafted, The Hedgehog seldom aims to be more than a pleasant low-key diversion-at which it succeeds-so it's jolting when the story pulls an abrupt late turn that casts everything in a more serious, ambitious light.
Le Guillermic is fine in this calm comedy of subverted exteriors and expectations, but it's the remarkably unpretentious -- earthy, even -- Balasko who anchors Achache's adaptation.
