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53
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45
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61
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43
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66
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29
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23
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80
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61
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39
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xx
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30
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34
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60
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32
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27
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41
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39
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46
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73
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78
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55
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66
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69
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58
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47
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66
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34
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33
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54
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67
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51
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42
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28
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63
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86
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35
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48
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30
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53
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24
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83
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33
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45
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55
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47
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96
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35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
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88
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71
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67
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28
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73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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96
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56
Adam
72
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78
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61
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72
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86
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13
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70
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26
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57
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45
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Carriers
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67
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70
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85
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55
Endgame
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62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
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28
Free Style
xx
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50
Fuel
25
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50
Give Me Your Hand
58
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72
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89
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52
Grace
66
Harmony and Me
81
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xx
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63
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73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
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94
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29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
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61
Intimate Enemies
42
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70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
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41
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41
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66
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34
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80
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83
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xx
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59
More Than a Game
67
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34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
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48
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73
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66
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47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
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68
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68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
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76
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69
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79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
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77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
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46
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39
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89
Still Walking![]()
50
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55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
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61
Trucker
xx
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83
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66
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66
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70
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55
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67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Crush
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 30 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Romance
Written by: John McKay
Directed by: John McKay
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 3, 2002
DVD: August 27, 2002
Running Time: 112 minutes, Color
Origin: Germany / UK
Summary
RATING: R for sexuality and language
Starring Andie MacDowell, Imelda Staunton, Anna Chancellor, Kenny Doughty, and Bill Paterson
A sharply observed ode to the triumphs and tragedies of women and the men that accessorize them. (Sony Pictures Classics)
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...
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
There aren't many movies that deal with middle-aged women, and this one manages to do so with a fair amount of wit and heart.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Loren King
MacDowell offers an engaging portrait of a complex woman who has survived life's slings and arrows. It makes Crush an affecting take on modern women.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Crush is an Aga romance crossed with modern retro-feminist soft porn, in which liberated women discuss lust as if it were a topic and not a fact.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Loren King
A surprising and delightful romantic take on modern women.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
The film bubbles with acid wit, in the tradition of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges, while simmering with the ache of lust pursued and love lost.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
What Crush lacks in substance and originality, it makes up for with sheer likability.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Some fine screen chemistry between its leads and a spikey, offhandedly comic script by young writer-director John McKay put spice into Crush.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
It's the chemistry between the women and the droll scene-stealing wit and wolfish pessimism of Anna Chancellor that makes this "Two Weddings and a Funeral" fun.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Despite some jaunty performances and its pretty Cotswolds locale, the film, in the end, is hardly a pleasure at all.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Andie MacDowell bursts out of her good-girl cocoon in Crush to become a bright, bad butterfly: drinking, smoking, flirting with Ecstasy, having moaning sex on a tombstone just minutes after the funeral of a friend.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
MacDowell, Staunton and Chancellor are terrific, tearing into their juicy roles and reveling in first-time feature writer-director Jim McKay's sharp-tongued dialogue.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
After "Chocolat" and this, how about a moratorium on candy-centered comedies?
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
With heavy emphasis on cliché and stereotype, has at least four false endings -- and drags on for nearly two hours -- before it finally contrives to reunite its sitcomish pals for a last drink together.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Tim Merrill
There are pleasures to be had early on in Crush, but they get fewer and farther between. Nice while it lasts, the glow wears off all too quickly.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
The tragedy that separates the Good Crush from the Bad Crush is a cleaver that severs the film's relationship with reality.
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
For women who smoke and drink like fiends, the trio of pre-owned babes in this weirdly rotten femme-porn romance have awfully good, unwrinkled complexions.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
In the future, as recorded in the bible of British cinema, it will be written that "Four Weddings and a Funeral" begat "The Full Monty" which begat "Billy Elliot" which begat way too many pale imitations struggling to peddle the same brand of sloppy sentimentality. Amen.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Crush is that strange mixed bag -- an otherwise wretched movie in which an actress gets to do some of her best work.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The script's foolish contrivances crush its content.
The New York Times Dave Kehr
The sudden, radical change of tone is something far beyond Mr. McKay's nascent abilities as a filmmaker, and Crush never really rights itself.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Crush is the kind of movie that gives friendship a bad name.
Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
The kind of movie that gives "chick flicks" a bad reputation.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
Begins as a captivating romantic comedy and then, at the very moment it's most involving, takes a wholly gratuitous and disastrous swerve and just keeps on going from bad to worse.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Never good, Crush takes a turn for the worse when it takes a turn for the serious. Its attempt to drop cartoon comedy for cartoon tragedy essentially thrusts the characters from Cathy into the panels of Mary Worth.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
Whats striking about John McKay's feature debut is how much contempt toward his female characters the writer-director manages to pack into 115 minutes.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
It's about women, but as written and directed by a man, it appears to make no emotional sense at all. It treats women like idiots.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Manipulative tragedy, muddled motivations, incongruous reconciliations, deranged cuteness, all of it directed with a tin ear and laden with a score that evokes the experience of a conditioned lab rat.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The most depressing movie I've seen all year; in fact, I'm hard-pressed to name a movie aimed specifically at women that has ever made me feel as insulted and disgusted.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Tracy F. gave it a10:
This movie is much better than the official critics are stating. It's about the friendship of three women at an age when our society generally starts to ignore them! Strong performences of all three ladies, but especially Anna Chancellor!
This Is Gilbert Mulroneycakes Calling From London gave it a 7:
Not bad. But not particularly good either. A decent enough chick-flick (hate the term), but bereft of oomph, lacking just a little something to make it stand out. It certainly doesn't deserve such a low metascore, mainly because it doesn't have the cojones to be really bad; content to just pootle along for 112 minutes in its Joanna Trollope meets Helen Fielding sort of vein, and then stop. Engaging performances from Andrew McDowell, Steve Staunton and Duckface are what really make it worth watching in any way. One to rent, then (but not from Blockbuster). Keep an eye on the lad McKay, mind: he does show promise, if only he can give his scripts a kick start now and then.
Flo P. gave it a 10:
Not the best story but a very fine and competent cast! Plus points: The sparkling chemistry between the three women. A story about women pushing forty and more, which is rare enough in the filming business. Some really witty remarks and lines. Some realistic streaks in the romance (who hasn't experienced up and downs during a relationship as well as some doubts if it's really the right man?) Despite the tragedy: Life goes on -if you like it or not - and one has to deal with it one way or another. And if nothing else: It's sometimes disturbing but also a lot of fun. I enjoyed it very much!
