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Asylum

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 29 critic reviews
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Based on 0 votes
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Foreign | Romance | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Patrick Marber
Chrysanthy Balis
Patrick McGrath (novel)
Directed by: David Mackenzie
Release Date:
Theatrical: August 12, 2005
DVD: January 17, 2006
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / Ireland
Summary
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Mister Foe Young Adam
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
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...
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 >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 >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 >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 >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
The delectably atmospheric Asylum remains gothic to its morally maggoty core.
Read Full Review >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 >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 >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 >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 >Slate David Edelstein
McKellen's actions are queerly unpredictable (pun intended), but every plot other twist is portentously foreshadowed.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Alternately tedious, cliched and unintentionally funny.
Read Full Review >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 >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 >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 >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 >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 >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
The best you can say of Asylum is that it plays like a topless "Twilight Zone."
Read Full Review >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 >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 >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 >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 >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.
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 >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
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.
