Onegin
Metascore
59 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 21 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 21
  3. Negative: 1 out of 21
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  1. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    90
    A pleasure in all ways.
  2. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Lisa Alspector
    90
    Few things are more enthralling than unrequited love, as demonstrated by this drama.
  3. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Kevin Maynard
    80
    A riveting, unsentimental tragedy of unrequited love.
  4. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Peter Brunette
    80
    A deliciously romantic story, in all senses of the word.
  5. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Schickel
    80
    Handsome, well-acted, richly textured adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's novel.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Foreman
    75
    The pace slackens a little after the first hour, but the photography by Remi Adefarasin and music by Magnus Fiennes keep the emotion stoked.
  7. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    75
    Fiennes does this sort of inner pain thing exceedingly well, Tyler is beguiling and believable, and there is an edge of wit and grace to the proceedings.
  8. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    75
    Hot-blooded.
  9. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Paula Nechak
    75
    (Fiennes's) Onegin is clueless to anything other than the sensual world, and is finally more repellent than sympathetic.
  10. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    67
    Tatyana, the embodiment of a heroine whose still waters run deep, requires more maturity than Tyler as yet possesses.
  11. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    67
    A handsome, somewhat draggy and abrupt film that's more memorable in snippets than as a whole.
  12. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    63
    There is a cool, mannered elegance to the picture that I like, but it's dead at its center.
  13. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    63
    Despite Fiennes' splendid moodiness and Tyler's radiant vulnerability, despite lovely settings... this movie is dull.
  14. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    63
    A confident and promising directorial debut, one that has the feel of an experienced director to it, from the hypnotic unfolding of scenes to the finely observed character details.
  15. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    60
    (Tyler's) voice is still mall American, and Onegin's rejection of her is nowhere near as puzzling or as tragic as it's supposed to be.
  16. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    50
    Makes you appreciate opera, or NoDoz.
  17. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    50
    Would have been a stronger movie if it didn't require a strong cup of coffee going in.
  18. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    50
    Overall, this is the kind of thing that gives literary adaptations their bad name.
  19. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Editor
    50
    A sumptuous yet unexceptional story.
  20. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    40
    Feels too cramped, indoorsy and bloodless to catch romantic fire.
  21. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Dennis Lim
    20
    Unable to capture either its wit, psychological acuity, or formal rigor, the movie essentially reduces the schematic, seesaw narrative to doomy clichés.

User Reviews

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User Score
8.8 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. AnilaW.
    10
    Ralph Fiennes is a genius, a prophet, a saint of acting. I keep wondering, how a human being could have received such amounts of God's grace, as he has.… Full Review »
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