Claude Lelouch’s Happy New Year (La Bonne Année) is as much like any number of other Claude Lelouch films as one chicken egg is like another. It shouldn’t be reviewed. It should be candled (…) Lino falls in love with Françoise Fabian, the beautiful, worldly, understanding, amusing, liberated, intelligent, witty, sensuous, compassionate, 30-ish owner of an antiques shop (…) Though Françoise rates five more adjectives than Lino, she, in turn, falls in love with him (…) I find it difficult to understand how a director as intelligent as Mr. Lelouch, who has a feeling for comedy and who hires such attractive performers, can make a film as totally vacuous as Happy New Year. It bubbles occasionally, but like low-calorie club soda. — Vincent Canby, 1973.