Product Review

Twenty-five years after rising to international acclaim in Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, Daniel Auteuil returns to the world of Marcel Pagnol for his first work as director with this celebrated remake of the 1940's classic. Auteuil stars as the eponymous well-digger Pascal, a widower living with his six daughters in the Provence countryside at the start of World War I. His eldest, Patricia (the luminous Astrid Berges-Frisbey), has returned home from Paris to help raise her sisters, and Pascal dreams of marrying her off to his loyal assistant Felipe (Kad Merad). But when she's impregnated by a wealthy young pilot (Nicolas Duvauchelle) who promptly abandons her for the frontlines, Pascal is left to contend with the consequences. An exquisitely crafted, sun-drenched melodrama, set to a score by Academy Award-nominee Alexandre Desplat (The King's Speech), The Well Digger's Daughter captures all the warmth and humanist spirit of Pagnol's original work. In French with English subtitles.