| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Like Malick's "Days of Heaven," it is not about plot, but about memory and regret. It remembers a summer that was not a happy summer, but there will never again be a summer so intensely felt, so alive, so valuable.
|
| 100 |
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Green tells the tale through leisurely, eye-catching shots that allow the young cast members to imbue their characters with striking credibility and intensity.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
This dream of a movie is set in such a place; with its delicate shifts of tone, it could be a fairy tale by Faulkner
|
| 90 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Green has created a work of startling originality that will haunt you for a good, long time.
|
| 90 |
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
May turn out to be the finest American indie of the year.
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Director David Gordon Green has made a work of uncommon beauty and intelligence, one that is smart enough to trust its characters and the technical contributions of its crew.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
A picture about America with the blinders off, a film about heroism that makes you chuckle and feel sad - and a film about childhood that lets us reenter that lost world and see the grass, sky and sunlight the way they once looked, in the golden hours.
|
| 83 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
A peculiar combination of willful meandering and matter of fact violence, and it occasionally confounds in its attempts to exalt.
|
| 80 |
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
It's at once brilliant and inept.
|
| 80 |
Time
Richard Corliss
It stands, soars on its own. It moves to a seductive rhythm and vision.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
For those willing to work a bit at it, this is the sort of artistry many American independent movies aspire to - but rarely achieve.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
Although rough, it's a gem.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Elizabeth Weitzman
None of the children are professionals, and their uncontrived performances lend a painfully real quality to what becomes a rather lyrical story.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
A first-rate student film, but not much more.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Hardly perfect or fully successful, but it's strange and strangely beautiful -- a unique work of art.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Has memorable characters and images. Yet the story is elusive and occasionally puzzling, and some of the ideas are amorphous and self-conscious.
|
| 63 |
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
He (writer/director David Gordon Green) fired his arrow straight at a worthwhile target, but it fell a little short.
|
| 50 |
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Stylized to the point of poetry.
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