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Edge of Heaven, The
Strand Releasing

Edge of Heaven, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 86 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
9.6 out of 10
based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Nurgül Yesilçay, Baki Davrak, and Tuncel Kurtiz

Nejat initially disapproves of his widower father Ali`s choice of prostitute Yeter for a live-in girlfriend. But the young professor warms to her when he learns that most of her hard-earned money is sent home to Turkey for her daughter’s university studies. After Yeter`s accidental death, Nejat travels to Istanbul to search for Yeter`s daughter Ayten. Political activist Ayten has fled the Turkish police and is already in Germany. She is befriended by a young woman, Lotte, who invites rebellious Ayten to stay in her home, much to the displeasure of her conservative mother, Susanne. When Ayten is arrested and her asylum plea denied, she is deported and imprisoned in Turkey. Passionate Lotte abandons everything to help Ayten. A tragic event brings Susanne to Istanbul to help fulfill her daughter`s mission. (Strand Releasing)


GENRE(S): Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Fatih Akin  
DIRECTED BY: Fatih Akin  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: May 21, 2008 
RUNNING TIME: 122 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: Germany | Turkey | Italy 
LANGUAGE(S): German | Turkish | English 

Alternative Titles: Auf der anderen Seite

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
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The best approach is to begin with the characters, because the wonderful, sad, touching The Edge of Heaven is more about its characters than about its story
Read Full Review
100
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Oropelled by memorable performances by mostly unknown actors. The most famous of the ensemble, Hanna Schygulla, delivers a by turns serene and shattering performance as a mother struggling with loss, conscience and the first glimmers of unexpected connection. She's only one essential and unforgettable part of a flawless whole.
Read Full Review
100
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
With impeccable skill, Akin has made a film roiling with cruelty but guided by tough political optimism. No, we can't all get along, but some us of are trying.
Read Full Review
100
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The experience of seeing this film is cumulative, sober and profound.
Read Full Review
100
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Though I love McCarthy's movie, The Edge of Heaven - with its virtuoso narrative and frames packed to bursting with unruly life - has the potency of "The Visitor" squared.
Read Full Review
91
Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Akin is German-born but of Turkish heritage, and his films have often been concerned with the particular clashes and conflicts between those cultures. This film, though, does so in a much more oblique way than 2004's "Head-On."
Read Full Review
91
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Hopping from Germany to Turkey and back again, Akin is out to capture the ways that a globalized world can tear up our hearts, and repair them, too.
Read Full Review
90
New York Magazine David Edelstein
The Edge of Heaven is powerfully unsettled--it comes together by not coming together.
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90
Newsweek David Ansen
Schygulla's heartbreaking performance--like the movie itself--will stay with you long after the film's quietly devastating final frame.
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90
The New York Times A.O. Scott
By the end you know the characters in it so well that you can't believe you've seen the movie only once, yet on a second viewing it seems completely new. And that may be because the world they inhabit is immediately recognizable -- until we get to heaven, it's where we live -- and like no place you've been before.
Read Full Review
90
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Mr. Akin's film is so full of life that it leaves you breathless.
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90
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
A story about generational expectations and cultural shifts, The Edge of Heaven raises questions it can't answer, which makes it only more powerful.
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88
TV Guide Ken Fox
Akin achieves a peaceful balance here –- alongside the death and seemingly senseless tragedy, there’s also a kind of reassuring equilibrium.
Read Full Review
88
ReelViews James Berardinelli
The Edge of Heaven is marked by a number of remarkable performances.
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88
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The movie is near-perfect, suspenseful, heart-breaking, profound.
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83
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Akin divides The Edge Of Heaven into thirds, and ends the first two sections with emotionally devastating scenes of violence, before easing into a third section that deals with the repercussions and lessons learned.
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80
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
I prefer to think of Akin, however, not as a forger of patterns but as an ironist who understands that bad luck is a crucible, in the heat of which we are tested, burned away, or occasionally transformed. The Edge of Heaven is about something more exasperating than crossed paths; it is about paths that almost cross but don't, and the tragedy of the near-miss.
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80
The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett
The director, who also wrote the script, achieves a keen-eyed view of the Turkish expatriates in this film while sustaining his remarkable ability to make them universal.
Read Full Review
80
Variety Derek Elley
Superbly cast drama, in which the lives and emotional arcs of six people -- four Turks and two Germans -- criss-cross through love and tragedy.
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75
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Intermittently powerful drama explores a cross-cultural estrangement.
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75
New York Post V.A. Musetto
All too often, films about interconnected lives stumble under the weight of coincidences. Not The Edge of Heaven.
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75
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
It's a vivid ensemble experience, and the acting is wonderful.
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70
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Born in Hamburg to Turkish parents, director Fatih Akin brought an unusual cultural perspective to "Head On" about a marriage of convenience between a beautiful Turk and a suicidal German. In The Edge of Heaven, his first dramatic feature since then, the characters navigate the same cultural divide, but here Akin is more preoccupied with the sense of responsibility that links parents to their children (or vice versa).
Read Full Review
70
Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
It's not brilliant, but it wears current events on its sleeve, feeling out the state of German-Turkish relationships as the former Ottomans clean house for E.U. membership, and the demographic earthquake of 70 million Muslims waits at Europe's door.
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60
New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Like a more personal, less pretentious version of Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Babel," this spiraling dissection of circumstance, choice and fate is more about thoroughness of vision than tricky storytelling.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 9.6 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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