66
Metascore
37 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThe film is at times harrowing to watch, yet it's also wry and delicate and absorbing. It's infused with the messy excitement of imperfect passion.
- 90Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanNaomi Watts is a tremendous movie actress. She need only sidle on camera and glance over the terrain to claim the scene. What's her secret? Like the great Isabelle Huppert, Watts doesn't radiate feelings so much as she absorbs them.
- 90L.A. WeeklyF. X. FeeneyL.A. WeeklyF. X. FeeneyIt is worthy of comparison to the lifelike, character-rich films we cherish from that era (1970s), and is certainly one of the finest films to come out this year.
- 88USA TodayClaudia PuigUSA TodayClaudia PuigA revelation. One rarely sees American-made movies that are so unafraid to explore emotional cruelty and portray the consequences without positing easy answers or attaching happy endings.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterDirector John Curran has masterfully managed to convey flesh and blood within the permutations of the sometimes clinical story. Enhancing the people-next-door nature of this saga were the film's smart technical contributions.
- 80New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter RainerNew York Magazine (Vulture)Peter RainerA sense of unease, of incompleteness, is, I think, the appropriate response to this movie. Instead of trying to fill in the blanks, Curran and Gross leave things open and ambiguous. Just like life.
- 75Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversThe film, sometimes talky and overemphatic, is also literate, erotic, brutally funny and touched by brilliance in its quartet of live-wire performances.
- 70VarietyTodd McCarthyVarietyTodd McCarthyTony literary material, a fine cast and intelligent script and direction.
- 70The A.V. ClubScott TobiasThe A.V. ClubScott TobiasIn Curran's hands, what might have seemed like a "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?" redux gets cut into avant-garde pieces, with experimental inserts, sound effects, and wrinkles in time that add to an uneasy mood.
- Affecting and sincere in the best sense, which makes up for the whiff of anachronism and the creakiness of some of the big metaphoric moments.