| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Ulee's Gold is a story of redemption, and Nunez doesn't make redemption look any easier than it is.
|
| 90 |
The New York Times
Elvis Mitchell
Beautiful and heartfelt, an oasis of humanity in a season of furious hyperbole.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Ulee's Gold stands out for its sureness, its quiet emotional force and writer-director Victor Nunez's ability to find and nurture the mystery and power in the events of an ordinary life.
|
| 90 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
Though it occasionally wears its metaphors on its sleeve, Ulee's Gold should, if there's any justice, find the same thoughtful-drama-hungry audience that made "Sling Blade" a hit.
|
| 90 |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Nunez finds a striking lyricism in simple lives that inspires an uncommonly fine cast and ranks him as a world-class filmmaker.
|
| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
Russell Smith
Fonda brings all of his childhood frustration and angst to the screen in one of the year's most unexpectedly brilliant acting performances.
|
| 88 |
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The highest compliment I can offer Ulee's Gold is that it plays more like real life than a movie.
|
| 88 |
USA Today
Mike Clark
An emotionally honest low-ebber that builds to a satisfying wrap-up.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Nunez has a gift for finding the essence, the soul, of his actors.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Ernest Hardy
Nunez is a master at rendering emotionally complex, ordinary folk into the kind of unassuming heroes that don't much appear in American films anymore.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
The film becomes a modest delight.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Leisurely pacing of this kind is likely to register as a form of respect for the viewer's intelligence and observation.
|
| 80 |
Newsweek
David Ansen
Ulee's Gold possesses an attribute that's increasingly rare in American filmmaking, independent or Hollywood: call it soul.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Examiner
Walter Addiego
Nunez's style is quiet, simple and deliberate, but the film never drags.
|
| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Peter Fonda's the bee's knees in the performance of his career.
|
| 70 |
The New Republic
Stanley Kauffmann
Still, flaws and all, we have to be grateful to Nunez for persisting in his independence.
|
| 70 |
Slate
David Edelstein
Nunez's movies go places, but with no acceleration.
|
| 70 |
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Nunez achieves a rare, and rarely earned, emotional depth that rewards the moderate demands he makes on contemporary viewers' short attention spans.
|
| 70 |
Film.com
Tom Keogh
A very pleasant experience in watching life unfold in its own direction and time.
|
| 60 |
New Times (L.A.)
Michael Sragow
Nunez's direction is as self-consciously homey as a floral welcome mat.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Ken Fox
The power of an otherwise carefully crafted film is undone by risky and not altogether successful casting.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Worthy but dull.
|
| 50 |
Time
Richard Schickel
Nunez's film neither floats like a butterfly nor stings like a bee. It just drones on.
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