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The Yellow Handkerchief

The Yellow Handkerchief

Drama · Romance · 2009

A road trip through Louisiana transforms three strangers who were originally brought together by their respective feelings of loneliness.

Movie details

The Yellow Handkerchief

“A love lost in the past. A love struggling for a future.”

2009 Drama · Romance 1h 42m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.3 / 10

Community rating

A road trip through Louisiana transforms three strangers who were originally brought together by their respective feelings of loneliness.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Yellow Handkerchief?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Nine Lives

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Captives of the very relationships that define and sustain them, nine women resiliently meet the travails and disappointments of life.

Blood and Sand

Blood and Sand

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Bullfighter Juan Gallardo falls for socialite Dona Sol, turning from the faithful Carmen who nevertheless stands by her man as he continues to face real danger in the bullring.

The Lost Husband

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Trying to put her life back together after the death of her husband, Libby and her children move to her estranged Aunt's goat farm in central Texas.

Endless Love

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A privileged girl and a charismatic boy's instant desire sparks a love affair made only more reckless by parents trying to keep them apart.

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The Fugitive Kind

The Fugitive Kind

Romance · 1960

Val Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence. Her husband, Jabe M. Torrance, is dying of cancer. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere, the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family.

Departure

Departure

Drama · 2016

An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Udayan Prasad

Written by

Erin Dignam · Pete Hamill

William Hurt

William Hurt

Brett Hanson

Maria Bello

Maria Bello

May

Kristen Stewart

Kristen Stewart

Martine

Eddie Redmayne

Eddie Redmayne

Gordy

Kaori Momoi

Kaori Momoi

Motel Owner

Emanuel Cohn

Emanuel Cohn

Doctor Leonard

N

Nurith Cohn

Female Nurse

Court is in session

Put The Yellow Handkerchief on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.