Rabbit-Proof Fence

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The result is a film that outrages and fills the viewer with poetry that's at once epic and intimate, scandalizing and life-affirming -- a real work of art.

Time Richard Corliss

This is a chase movie (Simon Legree after three Little Evas) across parched outback terrain, captured with rapturous authenticity by cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

I love Rabbit-Proof Fence as drama, as protest, as moviemaking and as poetry.

San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel

A breathtaking story of defiance and triumph that has to be considered one of the year's most sublime films.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Searing dramatization of a story of remarkable courage, stamina and spirit.

Newsweek David Ansen

Noyce uses his Hollywood craft to unfold this primal, powerful story, he has an epic feel for the harshly beautiful Australian landscape and he gets wonderfully natural performances from the three girls. His bold, lyrical images stay in your head, like an unaccountably beautiful nightmare.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A movie of minimalist moments (Molly's tiniest gestures speak volumes) and lovely, almost holy tableaux.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The final scene of the film contains an appearance and a revelation of astonishing emotional power; not since the last shots of "Schindler's List" have I been so overcome with the realization that real people, in recent historical times, had to undergo such inhumanity.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The rabbits, foolishly introduced to a land that couldn't support them as they bred and dispersed, are symbols of the English: ravenous, unheeding, ineradicable and a constant threat to the native way of life.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

At an economical 94 minutes, Rabbit-Proof Fence trims all the fat and tells its heartfelt and stirring story. This is one of 2002's most memorable imports.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Noyce honors the story best by standing back (and getting Kenneth Branagh, as a supercilious official, to stand back, too): Noyce lets the landscape and the untrained young actresses own the screen, particularly the naturally magnetic Everlyn Sampi.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Noyce's movie is a testament to endurance -- the camera caresses the landscape -- instilling us with a respect and reverence for it, its harsh ways and the attachment to it that Australia's indigenous people hold.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Thrilling, heart-wrenching tale of the real-life incredible journey.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Although the movie, adapted from a book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, pushes emotional buttons and simplifies its true story to give it the clean narrative sweep of an extended folk ballad, it never goes dramatically overboard.

Variety David Stratton

It succeeds emotionally in the cause of what seems to be its primary aim, to advance an attitudinal change in Australians not normally sympathetic to the aboriginal cause.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Noyce wants us to feel the joy of the homecoming, but he's honest enough to show, in a coda that tells what happened to the girls after their break for home, how Rabbit Proof Fence finally must be more a tale of courage than of victory.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The story is so black-and-white that one feels like hissing the villain (Kenneth Branagh) and cheering the heroines at every stage, but it's so amazing that the simplicity of the telling seems warranted.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Where Noyce could easily have given Branagh a mustache and tilted the film toward old-fashioned melodrama, he leans on tactics that are less obvious and more effective.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Based on a memoir by a grown daughter of the eldest girl and rarely digressing from the journey itself, the movie is a dusty, calloused, primal Odyssey, as forceful and single-minded as a bullet train.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

An old-fashioned weepie tucked inside a fiercely indicting political thriller.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Noyce has treated this story almost like a page of holy writ. If he has erred, it is in the very awe of his approach.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Its adult themes of familial separation and societal betrayal are head and shoulders above much of the director’s previous popcorn work -– more hurt, more heart, more unassailable hope.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Noyce paces this amazing story well, and even if his young actors don't seem to have physically suffered as much as they would during such a long journey, he makes extremely good use of the bleak Outback scenery.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Characters are so well-drawn, so human - that even in the harsh light of history - it remains difficult to understand how Australia allowed such inhumanity to become institutional, mechanized and accepted.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

As ambitious as this may be, however, the movie's objectives tax its energy even as the girls' plight tears at your heart.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Here, Noyce lets his camera, the geography and the youngsters tell this exceptionally powerful story.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

The story itself is absolutely amazing, and the sense of outrage it evokes is universal, but director Noyce faces a difficult task in that once the story is set in motion there is very little action, other than walking shots of the girls, and almost no dialogue.

Film Threat Clint Morris

The performances of young Sampi, Monaghan and Sansbury are amazing. They’re immersing and compelling.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Not until the final shot does Noyce rise up to the potential of the history: There's a sudden shiver of recognition, that, my God, these people really lived this.

Film Threat Phil Hall

Achieves the impossible by taking one of the most compelling and harrowing stories imaginable and channeling it into one of the most ordinary movies of the year.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Kenneth Branagh overplays his portrayal of Neville, but most of the other characters are skillfully acted by a solid cast, including the great Aborigine actor David Gulpilil as the tracker. In all, this is a watchable movie that's not quite the memorable experience it might have been.