Regarding the film, director Claude Lelouch stated, "Finalement is certainly a film about France, but also about the French, about family, about freedom, about solitude, about appearances, about music, about cinema."[1] He stated that the character of Lino was inspired by "brilliant attorneys" such as Robert Badinter and Éric Dupond-Moretti.[2]
Boyd van Hoeij of Screen Daily wrote, "The sheer filmmaking pleasure and mastery of Lelouch behind the camera is especially evident in the first hour or so, with [Stéphane] Mazalaigue's editing deserving a special mention for how it keeps all of the different narrative layers laid out so clearly. But the plot's necessity to build to some kind of logical finale with increasingly higher stakes causes an initially smooth-running train to increasingly splutter."[8]
Guy Lodge of Variety called the film "cluttered, often baffling" and wrote, "[Claude Lelouch] falls some way short of his glory days in this muddled, sentimental tale of a lawyer grappling with mortality and truth, but his devotees will find much to chew on."[9]
Jan Lumholdt of Cineuropa called the film "a mixture of 'greatest hits' put in a bag of old tricks, shaken and stirred".[10]
Alberto Crespi of La Repubblica gave the film four out of five stars, writing, "...[T]his new film, despite some slowness in the finale, is a delight. And above all it is a surprising film."[11]
Movieplayer.it gave the film three out of five stars, calling it a "half-successful film" and writing, "...Lelouch's film manages to demonstrate the lability of human existence; a performance recited without scripts, but improvising, just like a jazz concert. Between constant leaps between reality and imagination, the film ultimately borders on an unsustainable paroxysm, which disorients and slows down the process of identification of a confused and not always happy audience."[12]
