You Will Not Have My Hate

Press Quotes

„sensitive, moving drama... [this] effective picture — whose main producers include Maren Ade - Toni Erdmann - could click with audiences further afield in both festival and theatrical settings.“„Crucial to its success is the appeal of Cesar-winning lead Pierre Deladonchamps….„Melvil — the mama-devoted boy [is] excellently portrayed by the tiny female performer Iorio, whose expressive work is a credit to infant-coach Nouma Bordj.“„[DoP] Dacosse has ample big-screen experience. His credits include several superb-looking films for acclaimed genre-embracing Belgian directors Fabrice du Welz and the combo Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani — often working at the expressionistic, stylised ends of the visual spectrum. But on You Will Not Have My Hate, Dacosse operates comfortably in a more low-key register, his palette mainly a matter of greys and muted blues.“ „Peter Hinderthuer's score is productively restrained throughout, serving to delicately underline the picture's numerous passages of turbulent emotion.“
Neil Young, Screen Daily

„a moving true story of tragedy and healing…You Will Not Have My Hate mostly takes place in the Parisian apartment where Antoine - a soulful, haunted Pierre Deladonchamps - shares a warm, happy, romantic family nest with wife Helene, Camelia Jordana, and their young son Melvil - superbly played by a little girl, Zoe Ioro, an inspired but unobtrusive piece of gender-blind casting.The film follows Antoine through various stages of grief, denial and rage, including painfully real dreamlike visions of his dead wife. Meanwhile he must make an extra day-t-day effort with Melvil as a newly single dad, a steep learning curve that throws up a few tragicomic moments. Both book and film are refreshingly honest……in it most stirring moments, this emotionally charged saga serves as a tribute to the victims of the Bataclan and beyond, and an uplifting lesson in the power of love.“
Stephen Dalton, The Film Verdict

„Kilian Riedhof avoids easy sentimentality in this restrained take on a tragic true story… Antoine Leiris wrote a whole book about his experiences, but Riedhof picks up the absolute essence here – the sentence that his wife's killers “won't have his hate” despite stealing her life. Riedhof is very interested in the ordinary, offering a simple, touching drama about a man slowly learning how to move on and deliver as a single parent. A bit like Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer, he learns how to make that French toast, although the stakes are obviously different.Such duality makes this film very interesting and a little surprising, as it could have easily become schmaltzy and nobody would even complain. But Deladonchamps's performance is also restrained, with his character's torment easy to see yet still somewhat hidden. It's a very universal, well-told story that could venture outside of the festival circuit.“
Marta Balaga, Cineuropa