| 100 |
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
The surehandedly wrought, beautifully acted, almost unbearably tense In the Bedroom is a rare film, not to be missed.
|
| 100 |
Newsweek
David Ansen
The compositions, the editing, the lighting, the sound, the music: everything seems meticulously considered, conjuring up a hushed intimacy that instantly sucks you in.
|
| 100 |
Slate
David Edelstein
The best movie of the last several years: the most evocative, the most mysterious, the most inconsolably devastating.
|
| 100 |
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
When a film as profoundly quiet as In the Bedroom comes along, it feels almost miraculous, as if a shimmering piece of art had slipped below the radar and through the minefield of commerce.
|
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
A lot of actors are labeled "brave" for taking on difficult scripts like this, but Spacek is the real thing: an artist first, without vanity, and a movie star almost by default.
|
| 100 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Desmond Ryan
When it comes to the realistic portrayal of the complex process of grief, most actresses are at a loss. Sissy Spacek is decidedly not most actresses.
|
| 100 |
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
With performances that will raise the hairs on the back of your head, it's a film that knows the private geography of love, grief and obsession.
|
| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
The uncoagulated anguish of parents mourning the death of a child has rarely been more powerfully depicted than in the collected vignettes of grief, rage, and retribution that make up the riveting domestic drama In the Bedroom.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There are scenes as true as movies can make them, and even when the story develops thriller elements, they are redeemed, because the movie isn't about what happens, but about why.
|
| 100 |
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The kind of movie they don't make any more -- a seriously beautiful, deliberately paced drama that meanders for a while at the pace of a summer romance, then explodes with phenomenal force.
|
| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Demanding, harrowing and very, very real. You won't shake its impact easily.
|
| 100 |
The New Yorker
David Denby
Field achieves so convincing a picture of everday normality that when violence breaks out one feels the same disbelief that one feels when it breaks out in life. [26 Nov 2001, p. 121]
|
| 90 |
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
For all its flaws, In the Bedroom is an unusual accomplishment, a serious drama about violence and morality that plays out with a fatalistic intensity somewhere between Greek tragedy and film noir.
|
| 90 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
An uncommonly good movie - a thriller that transcends thrills to become a heartfelt and heart-stopping personal drama.
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
Kimberley Jones
The actors, as a powerful and convincing ensemble, are equally understated and just as devastating.
|
| 88 |
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Field does what most American directors don't: He shows people at work, in the day-to-day activity unmarked by excitement.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
Mike Clark
Bedroom succeeds with performances that get some of their power from imaginative casting.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
It sneaks up on you and shakes you: a tale of the cold hell surging up beneath that windy, sensuous Wyeth landscape.
|
| 88 |
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Tremendously affecting on several levels, In the Bedroom is must-see viewing for anyone who complains Hollywood doesn't make movies for grownups.
|
| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
Like Kubrick, Field doesn't make any moral judgments about his characters, and his film remains stubbornly enigmatic. It can be read as a high-class revenge thriller, an ode to the futility of vengeance or almost anything in between.
|
| 80 |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Meticulously observed and devastatingly well-acted.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
Goes the distance to avoid banalizing the dilemma of a reasonable couple unhinged by unreasonable events.
|
| 80 |
New Times (L.A.)
Robert Wilonsky
If Dubus' work always resembled some sort of literary therapy session, as has often been said, then Field's version requires grief counseling. It is, at times, that devastating.
|
| 80 |
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Beautifully acted by a diverse ensemble, this Good Machine production is carefully crafted and deliberately paced.
|
| 80 |
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
Field made a thriller about what we are capable of in the name of hatred -- and of love.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
It's a human drama, drawn in such careful emotional detail, its two acts of violence -- one shown, one not -- are almost incidental.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Directed by newcomer Todd Field, who has a sensitive eye and a knack for storytelling.
|
| 60 |
Film Threat
Tim Merrill
A courageous film, especially from a first-time director, and deserves all the audience support it can attract. It’s a People Story, and it’s About Something. However, it’s also something of a heavy sit.
|
| 50 |
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Short of good, better than awful, it opens brilliantly, then just goes on, toward self-negating absurdity.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
Ronnie Scheib
A killer ending does not a movie make, and ultimately In the Bedroom may be more interesting to talk about than sit through.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
Increasingly unconvincing, In the Bedroom turns genteel rabble-rouser. Field's leisurely buildup forestalls but doesn't prevent his movie's mutation into a granola "Death Wish."
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