sentimentalize

Their latest collaboration does so “one bird at a time,” asking us to join two fine and observant artists in a high calling—not to sentimentalize the world, but to notice it before we lose it.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

Although this second season has its share of "Rogue One" cameos, including the return of Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera, it mostly brushes off the franchise’s tendency to sentimentalize.

From Salon ● Apr. 22, 2025

“Stonewalling” doesn’t sentimentalize or squeeze tears for Lynn, who, for all her meekness, naivete and often-foolish decisions, is tough enough to have long ago waived her right to self-pity.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2023

But fealty isn’t always a productive strategy, and while the first film greatly tempers the book’s shocks, it doesn’t sentimentalize the source material, as this one does.

From New York Times ● Dec. 15, 2021

Miss Watts never tried to sentimentalize their relationship.

From The Cricket by J. Scott (John Scott) Williams

Davidson, the Jerry Lewis to his Dean Martin, portrays a sentimentalized version of the idiots he sometimes plays.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2025

You talked about loss during the pandemic, but it isn't sentimentalized.

From Salon ● Jun. 9, 2023

More problematically, Austen’s plight is sentimentalized by a score leaning heavily on swelling, sound-alike ballads of introspection — overkill, despite the considerable vocal power of the cast.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 22, 2019

The book’s five-by-seven-inch format meant that the pictures were small, and I found the folksy tone of Hughes’s text distracting: it spilled over the photographs and sentimentalized them.

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 16, 2019

And if we grant a raison d'être to the sentimentalized historical drama, no fault can reasonably be found with lyrical passages like that at the end of the third act of 'The Piccolomini'.

From The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller by Calvin Thomas

“Booksmart” has been criticized for sentimentalizing high school.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 12, 2019

Mills, the author of such best-selling books as The Power Elite and White Collar, often overstated his points, and he had a tendency toward sentimentalizing Castro.

From Slate ● May 8, 2019

Without deriding or sentimentalizing the Amish, Castillo illustrates their culture while showing that Amish adherence to traditions and silence on sensitive situations can allow evil to seep in unexpectedly.

From Washington Times ● Jul. 10, 2018

One big help is casting great American actors in all these roles, but it’s also about not sentimentalizing or patronizing the characters — showing them as human beings first, not types.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 9, 2017

Sunday morning—led to some sentimentalizing of our Academy days.

From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover