Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 41 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 138 Ratings

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 31 out of 41
  2. Negative: 5 out of 41
  1. At the very least, look for it on 10-best lists next month, and there's every chance it will be a strong contender at the Oscars. Filmmaking so sensitive and intelligent deserves its weight in honors.
  2. 80
    Each and every one of the movie's 125 minutes is a moment of searing truth.
  3. Reviewed by: David Ansen
    60
    What keeps this movie honest is the characters, each of them a mass of conflicting instincts, virtues and vices. You know Gonzalez Inarritu comes from outside Hollywood because he doesn't divide the world into heroes and villains.
  4. It’s forceful, to be sure, but in a lurid way that suggests a telenovela that’s been baking in the sun too long.

See all 41 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 48 out of 59
  2. Negative: 9 out of 59
  1. 10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Alejandro Gonzalez lights up the screen in this horribly beautiful piece. This is one of the most depressingly fantastic bits to cross the barnyard in a chimps age. Benicio is sad and dark, while Naomi is downright cryptic and unmistakenly brooding. This piece of cinema smashes you in the face with bits of confusion with a sick side of morose. Smile while I shove a nail in your eye is what we say.

    Kill my family and I will smile all the way to hell, but not really. Mr. Penn delivers another fantastically crafted bit of acting to add to his repertoir. If you can sit in a pile of one's own mire and whistle dixie, then this flick is for you. Turn down the lights and ready your nerves because this comes at you this way and that without a slice of sorrow.
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  2. j30
    8
    Great editing and acting performances. It's a hard movie to watch because of the subject matter, but don't let that detour you away from the movie.
  3. Between "Amores Perros," "Babel" and this movie, Gonzalez Inarritu has produced some of the heaviest dramas of the past 10 years. Perhaps it is because they all deal with such shattered characters - in this case we are given a man who has just undergone heart replacement surgery which temporarily alleviates the strain ...between him and his separated wife, a born-again man who suddenly finds himself responsible for running over and killing a husband and two girls and the woman who has lost her whole family in that car accident. Each of these characters are faced with the idea of moving on with their lives; as we watch them adjust, we see that the difficulty isn't overcoming the past - it's the realization that they don't even understand what their lives are anymore. The serious performances from the three leads (Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Naomi Watts) are really what give the film its depth, and even make up for Inarritu's completely unnecessary nonlinear style, which seems to serve no purpose other than to make the viewer pay more attention. Expand
  4. caporegime
    3
    So trying hard to make things complicated and ending up making this film boring enough to doze of my adrenalin of caffeine.

See all 59 User Reviews

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