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.

Me Without You
IDP Distribution


7.5

based on 25 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

The Governess

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Sandra Goldbacher, Michelle Williams, Oliver Milburn, Trudie Styler, Marianne Denicourt, Steve John Shepherd, and Kyle MacLachlan

Spanning the 1970's and 1980's, this is the story of two best friends (Williams, Friel) living in the suburbs of London.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Sandra Goldbacher
DIRECTED BY:	Sandra Goldbacher
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: June 17, 2003 Video: June 17, 2003 Theatrical: July 5, 2002
RUNNING TIME:	107 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Germany / 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...

Slate David Edelstein

Rich, finely judged, gorgeously acted movie.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Friendship matters to those of us who still claim membership in the human race, and Goldbacher's merciless autopsy on it is both illuminating and dispiriting.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Has a bracing truth that's refreshing after the phoniness of female-bonding pictures like "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This film's intelligence and forthrightness about the things women sometimes do to one another -- and its resoluteness about where the line should be drawn in terms of selflessness between friends -- set it head and shoulders above most contemporary movies that deal with friendships between women.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Michelle Williams turns in a performance that is seamless, canny and artistically mature.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

You won't want to miss it if you care about movies that dare to chart intimacies in our age of spectacle, or about up-and-coming female performers and underused male veterans finding roles worthy of their gifts.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A chick movie? Well, yes, but it's a whole lot cooler than that one with the "Ya-Ya's" in the title.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

A powerful new film from British writer-director Sandra Goldbacher.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Offers a clear-eyed chronicle of a female friendship that is more complex and honest than anything represented in a Hollywood film.

Chicago Tribune Lou Carlozo

The only the bum steer in Me Without You comes in the person of Daniel, played by Kyle MacLachlan of "Twin Peaks" fame. It's hard to tell whether MacLachlan was dealt a bum hand in an otherwise fine screenplay or acted on auto-pilot.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Love. Lust. Recrimination. Jealousy. Resolution. This British female friendship melodrama has them all.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Anchored by Friel and Williams's exceptional performances, the film's power lies in its complexity. Nothing is black and white, starting with the girls' complicated relationships with their parents, which are simultaneously nurturing and fraught with psychological peril.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

An engaging, straightforward narrative about two childhood playmates and the stages of their friendship from 1973 to 2001.

Variety David Rooney

The two appealingly played central characters and the film's enjoyable evocation of the 1970s and '80s keep it buoyant and diverting.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Under its drab contemporary trappings, the movie, is really a Jane Austen-like moral parable in which goodness is rewarded and selfishness punished.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

More predictable than it ought to be - you can set your watch by the appearance of the mournful Nick Drake song on the soundtrack.

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

Me Without You is at its truest and most affecting when it steps back from the gig gling, bitching and nail biting to reveal how the compulsion to control and appropriate can be born of simple love and admiration.

Film Threat KJ Doughton

A sum greater than its parts. The viewer is taken on a journey spanning nearly three decades of bittersweet camaraderie and history, in which we feel that we truly know what makes Holly and Marina tick, and our hearts go out to them as both continue to negotiate their imperfect, love-hate relationship.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Aided by raw, committed performances from her two leads, Goldbacher makes them tough company for themselves and anyone else around them, on or off the screen.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This British drama is so overplotted it smothers the two main characters as much as they do each other.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Essentially humorless, Me Without You manages some pleasing textures all the same.

Film Threat Merle Bertrand

Not enough to hold the audience's interest, especially with such shallow simpletons as these two women in the leads.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A slight, smartly dressed bit of melodrama that thinks it's gritty when it's really a bit of puff.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Tough, unsentimental British film.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Though it boasts excellent performances by Anna Friel and Michelle Williams as bosom buddies whose lives meander over three decades, it plods on with a wearying predictability and some truly terrible dialogue.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.5 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jay H. gave it a5:
5.5/10. I was not impressed with Michelle Williams performance, but Anna Friel was very good. The movie lacks substance and the direction to draw the viewer into the characters. It just scratches the surface of the story. Tends to be slow moving at times.

Eddie C. gave it a10:
I love this movie... the story and the acting are great. and somehow the lack of perfection makes it perfect.

Andrew B. gave it a2:
A dismal film. The plot was full of implausible twists, involving crassly-drawn characters and dialogue that made me cringe. Actresses of the calibre of Anna Friel and Michelle Williams deserve much more than ths contrived mess.

Mike M. gave it a 7:
Excellent acting, real though gross characters, very good soundtrack, good pacing as the girls move through life, too soap-opera-ish.

Laurie D. gave it a 10:
Excellent movie with a good plot great actors and the editing is effective.

Caley C. gave it a 6:
I found this movie to be intriguing at first, but as it progressed I began to lose interest. The plot was too predictable and it was agonizing to watch these girls struggle to remain true to one another.

Me Without You IDP Distribution

Me Without You
IDP Distribution