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Bright Leaves
First Run Features


5.0

based on 21 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 3 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA 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)

GENRE(S):	Documentary
WRITTEN BY:	Ross McElwee
DIRECTED BY:	Ross McElwee
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: June 21, 2005 Theatrical: August 25, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	107 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / UK

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.

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.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A brilliantly amusing couple of hours.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Inevitably poignant but also often amusing and always deeply touching.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

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

Variety Todd McCarthy

Witty, thoughtful and illuminating.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

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

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

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

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.

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.

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.

Miami Herald Marta Barber

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

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.

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Bright Leaves First Run Features

Bright Leaves
First Run Features