Chomet reduces Tati's vast and bilious comic vision to cloying sentimentality. In this forest, they detect a strange, cloying smell that causes heavy drowsiness. This contributes to its less cloying taste but also causes it to spoil more easily. Pundik's delivery is never cloying, ironic or dumb. "Entertainment Weekly" criticized its "cloying, gothic preciousness". This has been easing uncomfortably close to cloying for a few years now. Guest nurses Durant to health, giving her the cloying affection she needs. The film impressed Maltin because "[w]hat could be cloying is played out honestly". Glenn Lovell of "Variety" called it "a cloying, mechanically plotted comedy".