Syl I have to say that I don't like this film. I love French films because I think they are more in depth, thought-provoking, and spend more time developing relationships between the characters. Unfortunately, Tatie Danielle is cruel and mean. She criticizes everybody but herself. She makes everybody else's life worse than hers by her actions. The way she treats people including the old woman who cared for her in the beginning of the film is exceptionally cruel when it causes her death. She moves in with unsuspecting relatives who have two young sons. One son is obviously homosexual but the parents either ignore it just turned a blind eye to it. Not Tatie Danielle! You can imagine what she has to say and do. Just look what she does to the family pet dog. Anyway, she finally meets her match in the caretaker assigned to her when the family takes a much-needed Greek vacation for a month. If only Americans could take month-long vacations, how I envy the French. Anyway, they get along until she has to leave her. Then Tatie Danielle gets famous for her poor treatment by getting national sympathy. When she's not in the old folks home after that incident, she is away with her caretaker somewhere. I don't know. I think Tatie's cruelty is just too much for me or anyone.

gut-6 I am not a fan of French movies generally, as they tend too often towards smug pretentiousness, more-sensitive-than-thou preciousness, and Marxist petulance. None of this makes for good comedy. How refreshing then to see a truly great black comedy concerning a common but under-explored comic theme, the evil, manipulative grannie, a woman whose best years are far behind her and whose only remaining purpose in life is to try to drag everyone else down to her level of misery by cynically exploiting their naive pity and sympathy, sort of a one-woman Religion of Peace. As the director said in interviews at the time, every family seems to have a Tatie Danielle. While the Australian television series "Mother and Son" was based on a similar premise, "Mother and Son" wanted to make the characters ultimately sympathetic whereas "Tatie Danielle" has no such agenda. Consequently Tatie Danielle goes much further and is therefore much funnier. You could not have picked a better actress for the role than Tsilla Chelton. Her facial expression combines to perfection pure malice, feigned helplessness and impish glee, and the film largely succeeds on the strength of her acting. This is a must-see comedy, especially in company with your elderly, manipulative female relatives. If you enjoyed this film, do see the equally excellent "Baxter" made just one year later, another highly original French black comedy albeit less funny and MUCH darker.

bassist_gurl Tatie Danielle is a film about an evil old lady who (at the beginning) lives in the south of France with a helper, Odile, who is probably in poorer health than she is. I have to say, when i say evil, i don't mean Disney-type evil-but-all-right-underneath evil. I mean truly evil.Odile dies after falling off a ladder cleaning the chandelier Tatie Danielle bugged her about for ages, Tatie Danielle moves to Paris to live with her nephew, his wife, and his two sons, one an innocent little boy, the other a homosexual teenager. Tatie Danielle, in the guise of being a frail old lady, starts to make life hell for this family as well, doing things such as abandoning the younger son in the park and wetting herself during a dinner party.Realising that Tatie Danielle is truly evil, her nephew decides that when the family goes to Greece on holiday, instead of his sister looking after Tatie Danielle as planned, he will hire another helper instead.Tatie Danielle tries to carry on her old tricks with the new, younger helper but she soon finds she has met her match.This film has a very dry humor, and is extremely entertaining to watch. The acting is also of a high standard. As a British person living in France, i watched this film in my french class at school without any subtitles, and we all agreed that it was a good film. Don't be put off by the fact it is in French, and you might have to read subtitles if you don't understand French. Just remember, in France most of the films have come from America or Britain and the French people have to read subtitles a lot more! I would particularly recommend this film if you are learning French.

MartinHafer Wow did I like this movie!! This is the story of a nasty old lady who treats everyone like her servants and pretty much hates everyone. She is not one of these cute or grandmotherly type old ladies, that's for sure! Her absolute awfulness is not reason enough to watch the movie--after all, it would hardly be engaging to JUST watch a movie of a horrible person. Instead, the writers really manipulate the viewer into ALMOST liking her or seeing something of value in this old crank--and THEN, she becomes even worse than you'd imagined! Its unrelenting cynicism is great. This movie reminded me of a much better written version of Problem Child with one MAJOR exception. In Problem Child, they had a cop-out ending when the rotten child's heart changed and he realized he really DID love his adopted dad. That NEVER rang true in Problem Child and Tatie Danielle never gives in to cheap sentimentality. It is funny and irreverent and very unusual to say the least.I remember the tagline of the movie when it came out roughly translated to "you don't even know her but she hates you already". Wow--this really sums up the old crow!By the way, what ever DID happen to the dog,....?