Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Bright Leaves

EMAILPRINTFirst Run Features

Bright Leaves reviews
79
5.0 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Documentary

Written by: Ross McElwee

Directed by: Ross McElwee

Release Date:
Theatrical: August 25, 2004
DVD: June 21, 2005

Running Time: 107 minutes, Color

Origin: USA / UK

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Ross McElwee, Patricia Neal, and Charleen Swansea

This documentary is a subjective, autobiographical meditation on the allure of cigarettes and their troubling legacy for the state of North Carolina. (First Run Features)

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...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Deeply personal, morally alert, and highly entertaining.

Read Full Review >
100

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Bright Leaves' takes on a sizable foe -- in this case, big tobacco -- but with such grace and wit that his message never seems medicinal.

Read Full Review >
90

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A brilliantly amusing couple of hours.

Read Full Review >
90

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

While making his new film, he (McElwee) imagines that his boy is looking back at his screen image from some distant point in the future, when McElwee himself is gone. No child of a moviemaker could ask for a more beautiful bequest.

Read Full Review >
90

The New York Times Stephen Holden

By the end of this reflective, wise, often hilarious movie, you feel as though he (McElwee) has slapped a huge chunk of raw, palpitating life onto the screen.

Read Full Review >
88

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Another of Charlotte native Ross McElwee's musings about his family, history (this time the tobacco industry) and life. It may be his best.

Read Full Review >
80

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

McElwee fans will welcome back the wonderful Charleen, his former teacher and lifelong friend, older and mellower but as beguiling and free-spirited as ever.

Read Full Review >
80

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Inevitably poignant but also often amusing and always deeply touching.

Read Full Review >
80

Washington Post Desson Thomson

We are hooked into a low-tech but compelling dynamic -- between relatively static images and McElwee's sensitive, connective narrative.

Read Full Review >
80

Variety Todd McCarthy

Witty, thoughtful and illuminating.

Read Full Review >
80

TV Guide Ken Fox

This rich, complex and surprisingly entertaining film also becomes a meditation on filmmaking and the parallels McElwee finds between cinema and, of all things, smoking.

Read Full Review >
75

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Where most documentaries offer us facts to hold on to, his (McElwee's) are obsessed with the mystery of things we don't know and never will.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

This might have come off as both self-indulgent and preachy if McElwee weren't so persuasively earnest. "Bright Leaves" becomes both a mystery and memoir in progress and though the filmmaker does not find the truth he is looking for, it was clearly a quest worth undertaking.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Post Lou Lumenick

In a season of hyperven tilating political docu mentaries - witness Michael Moore and his imitators - Ross McElwee shows just how far subtlety can go with his latest charming effort, Bright Leaves.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Another of his (McElwee) beguiling "personal chronicle" movies.

Read Full Review >
75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not a documentary about anything in particular. That is its charm. It's a meandering visit by a curious man with a quiet sense of humor, who pokes here and there in his family history, and the history of tobacco.

Read Full Review >
75

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

It's a gently provocative film diary about tobacco and its mixed legacy.

Read Full Review >
70

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

One reason Bright Leaves is McElwee's best film since "Sherman's March" is the richness of his reflections on this multifaceted material.

Read Full Review >
70

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Continuing the autobiographical torrent begun nearly 30 years ago, Bright Leaves is an utterly mundane miracle, a sampling of gentle insight and poetic retrospection quietly at odds with the exploitative culture around it.

Read Full Review >
70

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Under his (McElwee's) watch, the possibilities of a documentary seem to expand by the minute, incorporating not only journalistic truths, but also personal insights and philosophy, unique regional textures, and unexposed pockets of humanity.

Read Full Review >
50

Miami Herald Marta Barber

Results in a weightless film. Worse still, McElwee's languid tone makes his journey lack conviction.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Mark W. gave it a2:
Don't be fooled as I was. This is not a documentary on the tobacco industry. It is a slow boring ride through a muted tour of how much the maker like to shoot video. Ross McElwee spend two hours of my life talking to his Southern cousins and people that speak of The South and others that might quit smoking but never do. All the while trying to sell the story that a forgotten Hollywood file of the Fifties was a story of his Great-Grandfather.

Popular on CBS sites: College Signing Day | Olympics | Lost | iPhone | Cell Phones | Video Game Reviews | Free Music

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use