Declaration of War (French: La Guerre est déclarée) is a 2011 French film directed by Valérie Donzelli, and written by and starring Donzelli and Jérémie Elkaïm; it is based on actual events in their lives together, when they were a young couple caring for their dangerously ill son. It was released on the 31 August 2011 and received very positive reviews; Allociné, a review aggregation website gave it an average of 4.3 stars out of five. Le Monde gave it a full five stars, saying "Against cancer, an undoubtable force of happiness". The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.
Contents
Cast
Valérie Donzelli as Juliette
Jérémie Elkaïm as Roméo Benaïm
César Desseix as Adam (18 months old)
Gabriel Elkaïm as Adam (8 years old)
Brigitte Sy as Claudia, Roméo's mother
Elina Löwensohn as Alex, Claudia's wife
Michèle Moretti as Geneviève, Juliette's mother
Philippe Laudenbach as Philippe, Juliette's father
Bastien Bouillon as Nikos
Béatrice De Staël as Doctor Prat, pediatrician
Anne Le Ny as Doctor Fitoussi, neurologist
Frédéric Pierrot as Doctor Sainte-Rose, surgeon
Blanche Gardin as The Hostess Necker
Jennifer Decker as A girl at the feast of Jeanne
Reception
Critical response
Declaration of War has an approval rating of 86% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews, and an average rating of 7.4/10. Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".