GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Asylum
Paramount Classics

Asylum reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 51 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
N/A out of 10
based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 0 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for strong sexuality, some violence and brief language

Starring Natasha Richardson, Ian McKellen, Hugh Bonneville, and Marton Csokas

Set in 1950's England, this tale of erotic obsession tells the story of Stella Raphael (Richardson), a restless, beautiful woman who desperately desires to find in romantic love the one thing that will change everything. (Paramount Classics)


GENRE(S): Foreign  |  Romance  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Patrick Marber
Chrysanthy Balis
Patrick McGrath (novel)
 
DIRECTED BY: David Mackenzie  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: January 17, 2006 
Theatrical: August 12, 2005 
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: UK / Ireland 

Prize of the Guild of German Art House Cinemas, 2005 Berlin International Film Festival

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
A film that takes you by surprise, refusing to relinquish its grim, fascinating hold. Better yet, it has crept up on us without much advance promotional fanfare. The less known about its twists, the better.
Read Full Review
80
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
David Mackenzie, who directed the remarkable Scottish drama "Young Adam" (2003), delivers another masterful, disturbing tale of illicit passion, erotic obsession, and sudden death set in the 1950s.
Read Full Review
80
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
It's one of the year's signature film experiences.
Read Full Review
75
Miami Herald Connie Ogle
The film, with its uniformly terrific cast, stern Gothic overtones and steady but measured pacing, is a crisp, old-fashioned delight, eschewing cheap tricks for repeated tiny pricks of unease that work up to a continuous gnawing dread.
Read Full Review
75
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Patrick McGrath's novel provides a solid and suspenseful story, even if it loses much of its bite in Mackenzie's hands.
Read Full Review
67
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
The delectably atmospheric Asylum remains gothic to its morally maggoty core.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Ty Burr
A classy unintentional hoot.
Read Full Review
63
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Asylum is as dark as Dracula's mood on a moonless night, and people suffering from depression should think twice before opening the coffin. This thing would put off Mary Poppins.
Read Full Review
63
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Natasha Richardson glides through the film version of Patrick McGrath's novel Asylum in various states of fear, desire and undress, a swan among Yorkshire frumps.
Read Full Review
60
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Mackenzie's film could almost use one or two lurid touches in place of its stately distance. Then again, a more stylized approach might have allowed less room for Richardson, whose unsparing performance makes other elements almost irrelevant.
Read Full Review
60
Empire Anna Smith
It may not be as daring as Young Adam, but this is a well-performed adaptation of an absorbing melodrama.
Read Full Review
50
Slate David Edelstein
McKellen's actions are queerly unpredictable (pun intended), but every plot other twist is portentously foreshadowed.
Read Full Review
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Alternately tedious, cliched and unintentionally funny.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel
Mostly meets expectations.
Read Full Review
50
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Nothing wrecks the mood of a high-toned British period piece about erotic obsession quicker than an unintentional laugh. In which case, prepare for Asylum to be derailed by snorts in all the wrong places.
Read Full Review
50
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
I hope to God that Patrick McGrath's novel Asylum, about a bunch of repressed Brits manipulating the stuffing out of one another in a 1950s psychiatric hospital, is better than the shallowly competent exercise in nastiness that British director David Mackenzie and screenwriter Patrick Marber have made of it.
Read Full Review
50
Variety Eddie Cockrell
Overly plotted erotic drama.
Read Full Review
50
Village Voice Jessica Winter
Mackenzie and Marber opt for an anonymous viewpoint of clinical detachment, which generates about the same psychodramatic tension as reading the "DSM-IV."
Read Full Review
50
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It's an overwrought Gothic melodrama that has a nice first act before it descends into shameless absurdity.
Read Full Review
50
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
Much of the dialogue is scissor-sharp--you would expect no less of Marber, who wrote "Closer"--but he is up against blunt and obvious material.
Read Full Review
50
Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
The best you can say of Asylum is that it plays like a topless "Twilight Zone."
Read Full Review
50
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The strong cast keeps the material from descending into sheer smutty tripe, but it's an uphill battle and in the end, not really worth their considerable efforts.
Read Full Review
50
New York Post Lou Lumenick
McKellen, Csokas, Bonneville and particularly Richardson are so good and convincing in their characterizations that you can almost overlook the increasingly unbelievable twists that Asylum takes. Almost.
Read Full Review
40
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
A psychological thriller without bothering much with psychology. Come to think of it, the thrills are pretty much missing, as well.
Read Full Review
40
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
Dreary, claustrophobic drama.
Read Full Review
40
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
It's too over-the-top, too lurid and at times simply too silly to represent any kind of valid commentary on the repressive '50s or the way in which institutions tend to destroy rather than cure. "Far From Heaven," which nailed '50s angst to perfection, Asylum could not be farther from.
Read Full Review
40
Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman
Ms. Richardson and Mr. Csokas are sunk mainly by the script (it's the handiwork of "Closer" playwright Patrick Marber and Chrysanthy Balis) and by their complete lack of chemistry. Still, their performances do them no credit.
30
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
It's just so darn annoying to watch this attractive, seemingly smart woman throw her life away for some (admittedly rather hot) sex in the greenhouse.
Read Full Review
10
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Shouldn't fool viewers into thinking it's anything but a pseudo-artsy piece of tripe.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use