The Criterion Collection

Stuart Galbraith eats up Abdellatif Kechiche’s delectable The Secret of the Grain, calling it in a DVD Talk review “the kind of intimate family drama that you don’t merely witness—by the time the film is over it’s almost as if you’ve personally shared in its characters’ experiences . . . Gradually you begin to realize just how richly layered and multifaceted it is.” Galbraith places this “hypnotically engrossing” film in the website’s prestigious Collector Series.

Michael Atkinson, writing for IFC.com, is similarly appreciative, calling The Secret of the Grain “the kind of movie you’d hope film pros could make regularly, to fill our empty, sugar-shocked bellies, but they’re difficult and rare.” And, he says, “Kechiche’s film covers an enormous amount of cultural territory, but it never rushes. Rants and ordeals and meals are experienced in more or less real time, with the first late-afternoon family meal lasting an extraordinary twenty minutes of laid-back, jabbering, mouth-stuffing conversation.”

More from DVD Verdict (“richly compelling”) and Film.com (“Belongs in your collection if you’re a fan of French cinema . . . and couscous”).