| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie is a little more lightweight than the usual People's Choice Award winner at Toronto, but why not? It was the best-liked film at the 2006 festival, and I can understand that.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Cynics need not apply, but I found Bella a real heart tugger.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
A tearjerker that earns its sobs with heartfelt emotions.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
May have more heart than head, but it's also just as interesting for what it leaves out of its romantic story as for what it retains.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Bella is, indeed, a beautiful film. The bustling, cab-crowded thoroughfares of New York City have rarely looked as inviting and the coastline as momentously beachy as they do in this film.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Well-acted first-feature.
|
| 50 |
Variety
Robert Koehler
Mexican-born helmer Alejandro Monteverde's debut will be remembered as a curious case of a mediocre film that wows crowds.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Tribune
Tasha Robinson
The melodrama and cheap theatrics of the story’s off-center segments drag the whole thing down.
|
| 50 |
Los Angeles Times
Gary Goldstein
Certainly a sweet, life-affirming picture, but it's just not authentic or captivating enough to justify its wildly concocted scenario.
|
| 50 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
What are you going to do when your lead actress offers a performance that's as unlikable as the woman she's portraying? Maybe it's the script (flimsy, formulaic), or filmmaker Alejandro Gomez Monteverde's conspicuous direction, but Tammy Blanchard's Nina, a waitress with a dour disposition and an unwanted pregnancy, pretty much sucks the life out of this well-meaning melodrama.
|
| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
In stories like this defiantly unsubtle, structurally clunky specimen, causes women who are considering abortion to think again, and self-selecting audiences to enjoy a light, luxurious weep.
|
| 50 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
If you have an appetite for well-made treacle, then Bella should go down a treat.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
Julia Wallace
Manages to be utterly predictable without making any sense at all.
|
| 40 |
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
If Bella (the title doesn’t make sense until the last scene) is a mediocre cup of mush, the response to it suggests how desperate some people are for an urban fairy tale with a happy ending, no matter how ludicrous.
|
| 38 |
Boston Globe
Erin Meister
In this bilingual morality movie about love, family, and fate, however, the unpredictability turns out to be highly predictable.
|
| 38 |
Miami Herald
Connie Ogle
The film is more of an exercise in pandering and propaganda -- give your baby up for adoption, you selfish pig! -- than the heartfelt drama it aims to be.
|
| 33 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
The emotions at play in Bella are no doubt heartfelt--and must have resonated with a few hundred people, anyway--but they're so cut-and-dried that the mawkish script virtually writes itself.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
A Mexican movie in which the outcome is never in doubt, the scenes are endless -- sorry, we meant poetic-- and the false beard on the central character's face looks as though it could use a little extra gum.
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