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The Sea Inside
Metascore
74 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 38 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 38
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 38
  3. Negative: 0 out of 38
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  1. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    100
    Based on a true story, the movie has abundant humor and uplift - but it's a heartbreaker of extraordinary dimension.
  2. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    100
    A monumentally moving experience, from the powerful acting by Javier Bardem to the evocative music, composed by the director, Alejandro Amenábar.
  3. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    100
    The Sea Inside brings us outside and inside ourselves, and takes us to brave new aesthetic depths.
  4. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Kevin Allison
    100
    In the way that water can heal and harm, this film balances moments of dreamy spirituality with the salty harshness of family disputes.
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Holland
    100
    A dramatic triumph.
  6. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    90
    The result is a film both poetic and profound.
  7. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    90
    What makes The Sea Inside such a riveting drama is that none of these relationships is sufficient to make Ramón want to go on living.
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    90
    Bardem's performance is a marvel of restraint and control, both physical and emotional.
  9. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    88
    The Sea Inside is uplifting. This is a movie that may cause viewers to both laugh and cry.
  10. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    83
    The film is a melancholy but poetic meditation on the fragility of the gift of life.
  11. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Rick Kisonak
    80
    Rare is the motion picture which grapples with issues this provocative and profound. Rarer still is one which does so this well.
  12. Empire
    Reviewed by: Kim Newman
    80
    The more intimate scenes are almost unbearably poignant.
  13. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Ken Tucker
    80
    Operates as stealth art: stately, moving, beautifully acted, and urgently subversive to our own status quo.
  14. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Melissa Levine
    80
    A flawed film worth seeing.
  15. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    As for Bardem: How can I do him justice? He is normally the most robustly physical of actors, with a plummy voice and an insolent sensuality. To see him immobile, ashen, his hair gone, de-bodyized: It's agonizing.
  16. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    80
    Has its share of contrivances, some more successful than others, but center stage is occupied by truth, and austere beauty.
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  17. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    80
    A film about freedom as well as death, this won't suit every taste, but it rewards close attention and has moments of saving humor.
  18. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    75
    The film, quite rightly, is a tour de force for Bardem.
  19. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    This is simply the story of one man. Yes, and on those terms I accept it, and was moved by the humanity and logic of the character.
  20. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    75
    Wrings honest emotion and riveting dramatics from its tale.
  21. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    75
    Bardem is brilliant.
  22. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Connie Ogle
    75
    Fortunately, Bardem, who earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls," makes up for the script's shortcomings.
  23. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    75
    For the most part, the film stays steady-on, celebrating one man's crusade - and one family's heartbreak.
  24. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Carla Meyer
    75
    It's moving, romantic, dreamlike, flawlessly acted and so engaging as to make you forget about euthanasia before it jolts you back into recognition.
  25. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Leah McLaren
    75
    This movie might make you cry, but it is not explicitly designed to do so.
  26. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    75
    The classy production, with its aesthetic graces, is especially convincing about the charisma of the man, a performance specialty of the great Bardem.
  27. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ethan Alter
    70
    The result isn't an easy film, but it is rewarding.
  28. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Charles Taylor
    70
    There's a combination of fatalism and hard-edged humor at work in The Sea Inside that you can imagine Irish writers would feel right at home with.
  29. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Laura Sinagra
    70
    Unfortunately, Bardem is confined by more than Ramón's paralysis. He also must work within the limits of a partially numbed script.
  30. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    70
    It's a testament to his (Amenabar's) cinematic flair that he has taken as daunting a subject as euthanasia and turned it into a crowd-pleasing movie. It's also an indication of what feels wrong here. I can't deny that I was moved, but it all goes down a bit TOO easy.
  31. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Kimberley Jones
    67
    Understandably, a filmmaker tackling the retelling of a national hero must do so with great delicacy, but The Sea Inside presents not so much a hero as a saint in Sampredo.
  32. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    67
    If the movie is largely familiar, its passion and craft are noteworthy.
  33. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    63
    Bardem gives such a brilliant performance in The Sea Inside, it's a crime that the film itself drowns in tears.
  34. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Nelson Pressley
    60
    Placid and rather attractive on the surface, with depths you can sense but which are never fully plumbed.
  35. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    50
    You want the movie to stir your soul, push your intellect, or at the very least, break your heart. But it's such a repetitive and thinly constructed piece of filmmaking that the scope and complexity of Sampedro's case are turned to porridge.
  36. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    50
    When pinned mostly in the man's bedroom, Amenábar's flashier instincts are stifled by a bolted camera and a procession of issue-of-the-week clichés.
  37. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    50
    The film fails to convey the claustrophobic terror experienced by a man who called his book "Letters From Hell."
  38. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    40
    I remained strangely dry-eyed up to the final shot.
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User Reviews

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User Score
8.7 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 49 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 31
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 31
  3. Negative: 1 out of 31
  1. RegOz
    9
    Touching, powerful, intense....Amenabar does it again! This is not just a movie about solitude, it is also a movie about courage, integrity and friendhsip. I am fluent in both languages (English and Spanish). It is great in both...better in teh original of course...the subtitles are never the same, but its beauty trascends the barrier of the language, anyway!… Full Review »
  2. jimmytancredi
    8
    "Mar adentro" is a movie through touch on the innermost hearts. I'ts not just any story that makes us reflect on the validity of our own lives. And for the construction of the message are added to the powers of the director, actors, soundtrack, assembly and photography. Amenábar is an extraordinary filmmaker. He could really force the emotions of those watching through primary devices that Hollywood is still trying to use (and that Spielberg, for example, dominates like nobody). Instead, he lets the emotional potential of the situations portrayed itself excites the viewer, producing true feelings. Much of it by Javier Badem delivers his best performance in his career. In that sense, what won me over was the fact that Ramon, his character was, at least in the film, an amazing person. Their speeches denouncing a tremendous sobriety and a realistic science of what it means dignity. It is impossible not to empathize with the subject. "The Sea Inside" is a story truly worthy of being known. If I had the opportunity to speak with Ramon, I'd say, "Ramon, friend, I support your decision."… Full Review »
  3. LizB.
    10
    Brilliant and subtle; so many layers of meaning for multiple watchings; profound.
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