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90In a film mercifully free of the usual warm and fuzzy movie sentimentality, director Maggie Greenwald and her fine cast shatter most hillbilly stereotypes.
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90It's a highly professional project complete with exquisite production details and superb actors, yet its subject matter is so far out of the mainstream, it feels almost radical.
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80This is not just a musicologist's dream; it's our dream, too.
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80McTeer and the transporting music hold you in thrall.
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80Has enough virtues to make it successful, including an unusual story and some fine acting, especially by the powerful Janet McTeer.
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80The haunting beauty of the music, and the people who produce it – that's the chapter and verse of this story.
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80Combines strong feminist sensibilities with surprisingly old-fashioned melodrama.
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75Perhaps too laden with messages for its own good, but it has many moments of musical beauty, and it's interesting to watch Janet McTeer.
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75Any film about the folk tradition is required to have a stellar soundtrack, and Songcatcher does not disappoint.
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75It may not get top billing, but glorious music is the star of Songcatcher, an intriguing and often lovely film.
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75Essential viewing for anyone who cares about American popular music and its roots.
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75Greenwald's film is filled with an infectious love for the region's songs. It could hardly be otherwise, given the level of musical talent she recruited for Songcatcher.
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75Greenwald is fine at creating the texture of early mountain life but loses her footing by embracing several plot points at once.
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75Somewhat sanitized but gorgeous Americana, with another impressive turn by McTeer.
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75Whenever the movie threatens to become just another visit to hillbilly-land, the music starts up and the film's gentle, irresistible wonder takes hold. Songcatcher is a film very much worth catching.
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75The music is truly the thing in Songcatcher and it's awesome, haunting stuff.
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70Best seen as a performance movie, featuring music (by Iris DeMent and Taj Mahal, among others) too wonderful to be overpowered by director Maggie Greenwald's plodding direction and leaden screenplay.
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70Songcatcher is a sweet, lyrical ode to rural America in the early 1900's.
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70Unfolds at a leisurely but enjoyable pace, its dramatic contrivances never pushed too hard.
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67There are mountain tunes as powerful as moonshine to be enjoyed in Songcatcher -- but there's also a mighty mushy heap of corn pone to be swallowed.
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63With a half-dozen characters sorting out life's woes, the pacing is a couple of beats faster than languorous — just enough to sustain one's interest.
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60For the most part, it's when the women do the singing -- that Songcatcher really comes alive.
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50For a film expressly about an underappreciated culture, there are some boulder-size cliches rolling down these hills.
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40Songcatcher is like an "All Things Considered" report on "a vibrant and lasting folk tradition" that goes on for two hours. It's so relentlessly, goddamn worthy that you long for some cheapness and dirt, some energetic pop trash to liven it up.
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40The commonest sort of cultural pasteurization.
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30A good subject has been ill-served by Ms. Greenwald's cliched script and clumsy direction.
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11It's all infuriatingly simplistic, and the performances help matters little. Quinn and McTeer are wholly uncompelling.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 20
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Mixed: 0 out of 20
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Negative: 1 out of 20
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KathyO.10Simpy very well written.
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KennethfromGA7
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RobertW.10