The Substance of Fire
Metascore
54 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 15 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 15
  3. Negative: 0 out of 15
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    The film, directed by Daniel Sullivan, is brave, I think, to offer us a complicated scenario without an easy moral compass.
  2. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    75
    This sensitive, sometimes troubling family drama is one of the rare movies dealing with intelligent adults tackling lifelike problems.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    70
    The film, to its credit, never tries to pluck your heartstrings. As it follows the Geldharts around New York, they are figures in a meditative dialogue on human values that reaches no easy conclusions.
  4. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    70
    In an era when films reduce the aged to comic cranks, Rifkin is heroic--the Lear of grumpy old men.
  5. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Staff(not credited)
    63
    Daniel Sullivan's earnest adaptation of Jon Robin Baitz's play is worth seeing for Ron Rifkin's performance alone.
  6. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    63
    Consequently, your reaction to the film will pretty much hinge on your opinion of the play. Ho-hum is my humble verdict.
  7. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    60
    But as Isaac, Rifkin is simply transcendent, giving what is the most accomplished performance of the year. He does not, however, have a completely successful movie around him.
  8. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Edward Guthmann
    50
    First-time film director Sullivan draws good performances from Goldwyn, Hutton and Parker, as well as Debra Monk, Elizabeth Franz and Eric Bogosian in minor roles.
  9. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Barbara Shulgasser
    50
    In the case of Jon Robin Baitz's script, adapted from his play, in spite of the fact that he made considerable alterations in the text to open it up to cinematic possibilities, the movie disappoints in much the same way the play did.
  10. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    50
    Aside from a powerful performance by Ron Rifkin (reprising his stage role) and a few quietly effective scenes, there's not much reason to subject yourself to a film this off-putting.
  11. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Robert Faires
    50
    The screen version feels like a rewrite made to make the tale more palatable to the "mindless moviegoing masses," which prompts the question: Is the film a truer vision of Baitz's tale of an uncompromising man or a version in which the truer vision was compromised?
  12. Variety
    Reviewed by: Lisa Nesselson
    50
    But what presumably was powerful in Jon Robin Baitz's play has been diluted in opening it up for the screen.
  13. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Lloyd Rose
    50
    The whole thing plays like some dreadful masochistic, self-pity fantasy.
  14. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Denise Lanctot
    42
    Rifkin's descent into madness is Shakespearean in scope, but the rest (except Parker) are precious. Fire? Duraflame. [18Jul1997 Pg.90]
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  15. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    40
    But despite a compelling opening, as a movie it loses focus and purpose as it proceeds.

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