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The Center of the World
Metascore
44 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 24 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 24
  3. Negative: 5 out of 24
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    If you understand who the characters are and what they're supposed to represent, the performances are right on the money.
  2. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    75
    Like "Tango," Wang's film also seeks to uncover whether sex without emotion is really possible, or worth the effort.
    All this critic's reviews
  3. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    70
    A fairly sexy, serious-minded drama hobbled by its lack of real conceptual ambition.
  4. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    70
    Wang is working on your mind, not your body.
  5. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    70
    It's also about pain, which both tempers and complicates the eroticism.
  6. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Jay Carr
    63
    Provoke us into examining whether the onus is on the man for turning it into a commercial proposition or the woman for agreeing to his offer.
    All this critic's reviews
  7. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    58
    Too arty by half.
  8. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    50
    All Center of the World has is the double entendre of its title, some unremarkable dramatic and sex scenes, and some embarrassing moments for its very game co-stars.
    All this critic's reviews
  9. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    50
    It's only when he (Wang) slows down and allows the characters to connect emotionally that his movie's unflinching honesty takes your breath away.
  10. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    50
    It certainly has its moments (erotic and otherwise), but there just aren't enough of them.
    All this critic's reviews
  11. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    50
    Where Mike Figgis' film, with Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue, bore deeply and darkly into emotional territory, The Center of the World turns out to be just as fake as its setting.
    All this critic's reviews
  12. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    50
    Wang's film doesn't really have anything more to say about power, manipulation and the wild unpredictability of sexual energy than "Last Tango" did 30 years ago.
  13. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    50
    Sober and serious and downright glum, ultimately an all-too-familiar portrait of lonely souls unable to break through their own isolation.
  14. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Steven Mikulan
    50
    We should be thankful for the courage of Wang and his cast in standing against a culture that nervously treats sex as either a prurient joke or a puritan crime.
  15. New Times (L.A.)
    Reviewed by: Gregory Weinkauf
    50
    For better or worse the movie is simply simple -- the project's quality and significance depend upon one's perspective: Is this a daring and impressive homespun yarn or just a very middling stab at soft-core?
  16. Mr. Showbiz
    Reviewed by: Kevin Maynard
    40
    Offers nothing but tired "Red Shoe" Diaries-style sexploitation for the art-house crowd.
    All this critic's reviews
  17. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    40
    Adults may discover, however, that when they get to the center of this particular world, they find no real there there.
  18. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jessica Winter
    40
    Hysterical but inorganic, lacking blood, sweat, or tears.
  19. Film.com
    Reviewed by: Robert Horton
    40
    In this case, I have to say, the sense of boredom.
  20. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    30
    The dance he (Wang) ended up with is on the wrong lap.
  21. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    25
    One pities poor Molly Parker, a fine actress who was somehow persuaded to disrobe for this degrading and dispiriting Wayne Wang film.
  22. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Thomas
    20
    All this sadness becomes so depressing to watch, testing the limits of the patience of even a viewer prepared to take Wang's underlying concerns seriously.
  23. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    20
    In a culture apparently defined by lap dancing, ersatz architectural sublimity and the virtual contact of cyberspace, how do we know what is real? The Center of the World, for example, is as phony as can be.
  24. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    20
    Drowning in uncharted waters and way off-center in any world.
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