Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Fugitive Pieces
Samuel Goldwyn Films


9.7

based on 19 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 4 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

The Five Senses

MPAA RATING: R for some sexuality

Starring Stephen Dillane, Rade Sherbedgia, Rosamund Pike, Ayelet Zurer, Robbie Kay, Ed Stoppard, and Rachelle Lefevre

Based on the international best-selling novel by Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces is a poetic and emotionally charged film about love, loss, and redemption. The film tells the story of Jakob Beer, a man whose life is haunted by his childhood experiences during World War II. As a child in Poland, Jakob is orphaned during wartime, only to be saved by a compassionate Greek archeologist. Over the course of his life, he attempts to deal with the losses he has endured. Through his writing and his discovery of true love, Jakob is ultimately freed from the legacy of his past. (Samuel Goldwyn Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Jeremy Podeswa
DIRECTED BY:	Jeremy Podeswa
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: May 2, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	104 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Canada / Greece

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 Sun-Times Roger Ebert

If Fugitive Pieces has a message, it is that life can heal us, if we allow it.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Dillane gives such a layered, detailed, utterly convincing performance as a man struggling with an inescapable and suffocating burden of guilt that he quickly makes us forget that he's too old for the part.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Fugitive Pieces has a sharp, devastating story to tell.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The strengths of Fugitive Pieces are its fluidity and subtlety. Emotional repression may be one of the most difficult conditions to portray honestly, and Dillane's performance of Jakob is a study in the art of creating sympathy by not asking for it.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

A subtly rich performance by Dillane and a fine supporting cast make this Holocaust drama worth seeing, even if you don't think you can bear another one.

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

The performances are often more compelling than the movie's sometimes static storytelling.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Made with an unerring visual dazzle -- its dark corners are shadowy, deep and melancholy, its brilliant seascapes the sparkling embodiment of why we must all find a reason to carry on.

The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

For a tale spiked with so much torment, Fugitive Pieces feels remarkably soothing.

Los Angeles Times Gary Goldstein

Hopscotching time on film is never easy, but Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa handles it with skill and care in Fugitive Pieces, his lovely, absorbing adaptation of Anne Michaels' lauded novel about a circumspect writer haunted by his traumatic past.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

In many ways, Fugitive Pieces is a beautiful film. But it's a bit TOO beautiful.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie does offer intriguing, perceptive glimpses of the everyday difficulties of being both a survivor and the child of a survivor.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

The romanticized image of the tortured artist - never mind how warranted his or her angst might be - is the stuff of stereotype unless it's leavened with humor, or limned in art. In Fugitive Pieces, neither element appears in sufficient quantity.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Everyone in the movie, from Dillane to (especially) Serbedzija down to the child actor Robbie Kay (as young Beer), is fabulous, and Podeswa has an ability to distill history into a few powerful images. The movie, however, is circular in structure and keeps reiterating points it has already made. For some, it will be a long sit.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Tasteful, unremarkable art-house fare, rescued from complete irrelevance by Stephen Dillane's bottled-up performance as a writer scarred by the Holocaust.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The film has lofty goals, but comes across as leaden and pretentious. It's a character study in which the lead participant is the least interesting person in the movie.

Variety Robert Koehler

The cool hand of Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa proves a disappointing match for Fugitive Pieces, a generally dull and unmemorable adaptation of Anne Michaels' extraordinary prose-poetry novel.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Fugitive Pieces is a cerebral excavation into history, written in lush cadences meant to be read or recited. It may be unfilmable, and in pursuit of sensitivity, Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa hollows out the novel's urgency in favor of a vaguely spiritual morbidity.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

As plodding and pretentious as it is ambitious.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Though much of the film's power is tamped down by the passive storytelling style, Dillane's performance as the adult Jakob is compelling, and Ayelet Zurer is beguiling as Jakob's late-in-life soul mate.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.7 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Sheila M gave it a10:
A poignant, compelling, hopeful film about a dark subject, The writer has done a fine job with a difficult toadapt book. I found the film beautifullly written, filmeMd and acted.

Dave M gave it a10:
Heavy movie to watch, but even the small characters were perfect. A must see.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page

Fugitive Pieces Samuel Goldwyn Films

Fugitive Pieces
Samuel Goldwyn Films