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Esther Kahn
Metascore
46 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 12
  3. Negative: 3 out of 12
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  1. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    90
    Summer Phoenix has a screen presence that's simultaneously distancing and transfixing, an inscrutability that makes her seem either mysterious or a complete blank.
  2. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    80
    Ranks among the best films ever made about the acting profession.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    80
    Begins as a shadowy film that progresses from dark to increasing light. It has been stunningly photographed by Eric Gautier and has a wonderfully expressive score composed by Howard Shore.
  4. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    60
    Brilliantly edited and gorgeously shot, Esther Kahn is a dream to look at and, courtesy of Howard Shore's minor chords and high-strung strings, definitely something to hear.
  5. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: David Ehrenstein
    60
    At 145 minutes it's a bit of a stretch, but the cinematographer is the great Eric Gautier ("Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train," "Pola X") and the score by Howard Shore is far superior to his Oscar-winning "Lord of the Rings."
    All this critic's reviews
  6. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    50
    Desplechin wants to film an adventure of the human spirit in the manner of a Hitchcockian drama, but he doesn't have a solid enough grasp of English culture to equal the complexity of his French productions like "The Sentinel" and "The Life of the Dead."
  7. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    50
    A draggy shaggy-dog story about a poor Jewish girl's painfully slow emotional awakening. The movie is 145 minutes long, so by the time Esther's awake, the audience may not be as lucky.
    All this critic's reviews
  8. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    50
    It's a charcoal draft of a movie -- magically allusive on some levels and utterly opaque on others, a strange combination of the overexplicit and the unwritten.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    40
    It is also possible that the problem lies not with Mr. Desplechin but with Ms. Phoenix. Her Esther is a fascinating mixture of passivity and ferocity, but it's not clear that she has the range to show both sides of the character.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    30
    This is a movie about the nature of acting -- or, more specifically, the nature that creates an actress -- centered on what appears to be a spectacularly unconvincing title-role performance.
  11. Variety
    Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    20
    Senselessly long at two-and-three-quarters hours and with a protracted climax that eradicates any goodwill established in the fastidious first couple of reels.
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Megan Lehmann
    12
    How do you inject life into a film whose central character is dull, slow, stupid and grim?If you're Arnaud Desplechin, you don't.
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