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65 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 25 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 25
  3. Negative: 1 out of 25
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Stack
    100
    Sigourney Weaver is so daring and amazing, her veracity is at times painful to behold.
  2. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    90
    An accomplished film that continually takes us beyond our first impressions of people and situations.
  3. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    The movie is not tidy. Like its heroine, it doesn't follow the rules.
  4. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Diana Abu-Jaber
    83
    The two lead actresses are exquisite in their divergent ways.
  5. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    80
    It's provocative and very moving, filled with some of the strongest performances of the year.
  6. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Kevin Maynard
    78
    Worth navigating for its refusal to play to the crowd. There's certainly nothing safe or sweet about Weaver's performance.
  7. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Russell Smith
    78
    One of the truest-seeming movies I've seen in some time and as one of the most odd and haunting.
  8. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    75
    Weaver is superb in a movie as scary and provocative as the timely subject it explores.
  9. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    75
    All of the characters in this story of love, guilt and redemption feel like real people, facing real dilemmas, and you truly care about what happens to them
  10. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    75
    Gives three first-rate actors a chance to stretch, and they do.
  11. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    75
    What makes this film truly chilling is the fact first-time feature filmmaker Scott Elliott and his writers somehow make every step of this descent harrowingly believable.
  12. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
    70
    If director Scott Elliott falters, it's only in the spots where he tries to comment on her (Alice's) persecution without being complicit in it.
  13. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Luke Y. Thompson
    70
    Sigourney Weaver and Julianne Moore share their pain in a depressing World.
  14. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    67
    Director Scott Elliott, in his feature-film debut, is especially perceptive about what goes on at the edges during deepening family crises, literally at the borders of the screen.
  15. TNT RoughCut
    Reviewed by: Don Kaye
    65
    Weaver herself inhabits her character with confidence and passion, although she's inconsistent in spots.
  16. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    63
    If it's not one of the five best of 1999, it's a personal best for Weaver, and that's pretty good.
  17. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    63
    The movie Weaver has to carry has so many nagging imperfections that Academy Award attention looks like a long shot.
  18. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    60
    There's not a single moment when you forget it's Weaver; she always seems to be inhabiting this poor character's soul for her own purposes.
  19. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Staff
    60
    Something disturbing has happened to this story en route to the screen.
  20. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    60
    Occasionally dissonant, but it's remarkably cleareyed.
  21. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Lisa Alspector
    60
    This eerily dry drama bravely attempts to show, without resorting to the literal staging of contradictory scenarios, how much perceptions of the same situation can vary.
  22. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    50
    For all the blathering, heavy-handed pathos, we might as well be watching the Lifetime cable channel.
  23. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    50
    All the right intentions but never overcomes the essential problem of showing what's going on inside people's heads.
  24. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jessica Winter
    50
    Scott Elliott's palsied directorial debut, from a mine shaft-ridden script, is a sick joke, and Weaver's part in it screams of temporary insanity.
  25. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Barbara Shulgasser
    38
    Strangely unmoving. So what went wrong?
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