SOURCE.

I didn't want to like this Frank Capra fable for the YouTube set; this populist cannonade across the ramparts of the filmmaking establishment; this hipster subversion of intellectual property mores and celebration of every denomination of mass culture; this preciously analog take on what is largely a digital phenomenon; but like the imperative at the very center of its title—BE KIND—it eventually won me over with its glad heart and irresistible fondness for the very medium it lovingly deconstructs. At one point a character even suggests that we, as an audience, become "stockholders" in our own happiness through the act of participating in, and creating, the art that we adore. And any movie that evokes The Purple Rose of Cairo by giving us the gift of Mia Farrow's rapt expression as she watches a film within a film already has too many odds in its favor for me to maintain much cynicism in its presence. As for its technical merits, Gondry is up to his usual perception-warping tricks, to comic and moving effect. If the schmaltz gets thick at all, it's only near the very end, by which time the preceding hundred minutes have made a lasting impression. Grade: B+