Back to trending
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.

Not Easily Broken

Not Easily Broken

Drama · 2009

A car accident and shifting affections test the bond between a married couple.

Moonlight Mile

Moonlight Mile

Romance · 2002

As he copes with the death of his fiancee along with her parents, a young man must figure out what he wants out of life.

Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

Romance · 2022

Clare and Aidan make a pact to break up before college — no regrets, no broken hearts. But will one epic goodbye date offer them a last chance at love?

Nine Lives

Nine Lives

Drama · 2005

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

Blind

Blind

Drama · 2017

A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.

Nobody Has to Know

Nobody Has to Know

Drama · 2022

After a stroke and no memories from his past, Phil encounters Millie who inhabits a desert part of Isle of Lewis. She will shortly entrust him with his deepest secret : they were in love.

The Lost Husband

The Lost Husband

Drama · 2020

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

Endless Love

Drama · 2014

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.

Ordinary Love

Ordinary Love

Drama · 2019

An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.

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

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

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.