81
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyHorton Foote's funny, exquisitely performed film adaptation of his own play, directed for the screen by Peter Masterson. The Trip to Bountiful is almost as unstoppable as Carrie Watts.
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineNo guns, no violence, no nudity--just a caring story that will wet the driest eye and warm the coldest heart. Every single role is perfectly cast and perfectly played, and Horton Foote's script is a marvel of economy.
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe Trip to Bountiful has a quiet, understated feel for the small towns of its time.
- 88The Associated PressThe Associated PressThe cast is marvelously filled out with John Heard as Ludie and Carlin Glynn as Jessie Mae. As an ensemble, it is as fine a cast as one could want. [6 Jan 1986]
- 88Chicago TribuneGene SiskelChicago TribuneGene SiskelIt is played out in such a special, gentle way that you will want to anticipate and savor it for yourself. [31 Jan 1986, p.30N]
- 88Miami HeraldBill CosfordMiami HeraldBill CosfordThis lovely movie, impeccably made in nearly every way, has entirely too much right about it to be resisted. [21 Feb 1986, p.D1]
- 60Time OutTime OutMasterson's images of small-town America are imbued with a luminous and melancholy nostalgia, but otherwise the film is not mounted with any special imagination, and its fusty, old-fashioned (not to say reactionary) lauding of homespun values sticks in the craw.
- 60Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrFirst-timer Peter Masterson directed; his notion of film is to point the camera in the general direction of the actors.
- 50The New YorkerPauline KaelThe New YorkerPauline KaelFoote can't make poetry out of material as laundered and denatured as what he comes up with here. The movie is intended to by a hymn, but all he and Masterson can do is give some of the characters a limp, anesthetized grace.