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Golden Bowl, The
Lions Gate Films Inc.


5.1

based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for a sex scene

Starring Uma Thurman, Jeremy Northam, Kate Beckinsale, Nick Nolte, Anjelica Huston, James Fox, Madeleine Potter, and Peter Eyre

An intricately plotted tale of thwarted love and betrayal which tells the story of an extravagantly rich American widower (Nolte) and his sheltered daughter (Beckinsale), both of whom marry only to discover that their respective mates, a beautiful American expatriate and an impoverished Italian aristocrat (Thurman and Northam), are entangled with one another in a romantic intrigue of seduction and deceit. (Lions Gate Films)

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Henry James (novel) Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
DIRECTED BY:	James Ivory
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: November 6, 2001 Video: November 6, 2001 Theatrical: April 27, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	134 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / France / 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...

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The team's (Merchant-Ivory) best adaptation yet of a Henry James novel.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Yet another Merchant Ivory triumph.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

It's splendid period filmmaking, grown-up and luxurious and gossipy without ever feeling fussy.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

If this handsome, faithful, intelligent screen adaptation of the novel doesn't leave you devastated, its ominous sense of a rarefied moral and aesthetic world bending before the accelerating streetcar of history will leave you with a mournful sense of loss.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

A meticulously mounted film that retains the author's ambiguous characterizations yet is still emotionally accessible.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

If The Golden Bowl -- isn't charged with electric emotion, well, that's not what Henry James or James Ivory is about.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

What Merchant, Ivory and Co. arrive at is a sort of handsomely illustrated Cliffs Notes version of the novel.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Too staid and stolid for audiences on the hunt for easy entertainment.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

But it is Thurman who stands out, with a marvelous, full-blooded performance, her best in some time, as tragic Charlotte.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I admired this movie. It kept me at arm's length, but that is where I am supposed to be; the characters are after all at arm's length from each other, and the tragedy of the story is implied but never spoken aloud.

Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman

Were the casting stronger, the film -- would have had a better chance of transcending its lack of subtlety.

New Times (L.A.) Jean Oppenheimer

Worth the price of admission if only to see the slinky Thurman decked out in a form-fitting, sequined pre-flapper era outfit. The word stunning hardly does her justice.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Seen in the bowl's metaphoric reflection, Nolte's Adam, with his patronizing wish to build a great art museum to "give something back" to the poor laborers who built his fortune, is a complex American monster.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Another handsome, dramatically moribund adaptation of a grand old classic.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

There's no mirth, and precious little passion, left in this house.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

If it's not perfect, it still gives pleasure to the eye.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Certainly diverting and, in Thurman, it also has a knockout of a performance.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Nolte, at least, delivers his lines with laser accuracy, and gives The Golden Bowl the life that so much cogitation could have drained from it.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

This early-1900s costume drama surely differs from Henry James's source novel.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

What makes Nolte so much stronger than the other performers is precisely this sense of mysteriousness and indirection, which doesn't really correspond to the Adam Verver of the novel but certainly jibes with James's overall method.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The restraint so magnificently applied in "The Remains of the Day" has simply fallen into disconnection.

USA Today Mike Clark

The movie establishes good will (or even great will) in the initial scenes because it's so gorgeous, but the rest is such a slog.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Dances in circles until you tire of admiring it.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Impeccably mounted, nicely scored and beautifully written.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Though it often wallows in louche baroque textures, The Golden Bowl is perhaps the most visually accomplished of the Ivory soaps.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Henry James' tangled, turgid prose always seems to me like a thicket of thorn trees -- so I should be grateful when somebody does the job for me on film. But I'm not - at least, in the case of The Golden Bowl.

Variety Emanuel Levy

A deliberately paced literary film that takes too long to build narrative momentum and explore its central dramatic conflicts.

TV Guide Ken Fox

What is grating is the filmmakers' perennial tendency to underestimate their audiences; their lack of faith leads them to drive home each nuance with a hammer.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Its splendor cannot be denied, but then again neither can the emptiness of this Henry James adaptation.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Takes a literary milestone of ambiguity and makes everything about it blisteringly obvious.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.1 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Renee D. gave it an8:
Those who enjoy period pieces will find this movie thoughtful and intriguing. The morés of that era demand the emotional subleties and restraints portrayed in the film and those who do not appreciate the formality of that era will probably find this movie less than engrossing. Apart from this, the movie was beautifully made and in itself makes this movie worth viewing.

Pat C. gave it a 3:
Merchant Ivory time. Grab those matchsticks and prop those eyelids open for an hour until snippets of plot materialize. Afterwards, in this instance, it's Henry James' expose' of lies feeding on lies to generate convoluted and narcississtically boring inductess for the Arrested Development Club. Well done and finely textured after all, but ending with a big fat So What. The Combination of Merchant Ivory art feel for its own sake and James' absence of fully formed adults is sominex for both the contemporarily disposed and culturally astute.

Lois M. W. gave it a 5:
I walked out of this movie when Uma Thurman was giving another one of her tantrums. Enough is enough! She is one of the biggest non-talents in the movies today, and I don't understand how she continues to be hired.

Andy S. gave it a 1:
If it were a restaurant, it would be a tourist trap. Dull, dumb, and phony to the core.

Giddy J. gave it a 2:
Beautiful, but story could have been told in about 20 minutes.

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Golden Bowl, The Lions Gate Films Inc.

Golden Bowl, The
Lions Gate Films Inc.