| 100 |
Austin Chronicle
In this magnificent, profoundly tragic film, Nolte and Coburn each turn in career-best performances as a father and son who embody the ancient, seemingly ineradicable male pathology of violence, retribution, and the slow death of the soul.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Nolte and Coburn are magnificent in this film, which is like an expiation or amends for abusive men. It is revealing to watch them in their scenes together--to see how they're able to use physical presence to sketch the history of a relationship.
|
| 100 |
San Francisco Examiner
This is a nearly miraculous conjunction of director, material and actor.
|
| 100 |
Baltimore Sun
Affliction turns the sound on with sudden, crystalline clarity, and echoes with the haunting power of a suppressed truth that has finally been released.
|
| 100 |
New York Daily News
Schrader and Nolte are both at the height of their expressive powers in a film that, in its concentration and sobriety, leaves a lasting impression.
|
| 100 |
Portland Oregonian
Searing, intense and unrelenting, Affliction moves to the deepest centers of experience and desire and brings its characters to unflinching life.
|
| 100 |
Entertainment Weekly
Affliction -- a beautiful bummer, a magnificent feel-bad movie -- is American filmmaking of a most rewarding order.
|
| 100 |
The New York Times
Janet Maslin
Succeeds in finding something larger than one man's misery. It turns dark truthfulness into the cinematic sentiment most worth celebrating this season.
|
| 90 |
Salon.com
Affliction is a harsh experience, but the harshness isn't a matter of punishing the audience or of the director, Schrader, showing off his toughness: That unvarnished harshness is the very essence of the material.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Rarely have a novelist and filmmaker been better matched.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Never has an actor embodied the passing down of violence and bitterness from father to son more powerfully.
|
| 90 |
Village Voice
As chilly a spectacle as you're likely to see. It's like watching a comeback in an empty stadium.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
We marvel at the almost perfect realization of a character whom we're not necessarily meant to like.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
Norman Green
Ranks with the year's scant handful of must-see movies, for the scant handful of moviegoers who revere powerful stories, disturbing, unforgettable characters, plots with the serious sweep of literature, and kickass acting above all else.
|
| 90 |
Dallas Observer
This is anything but pleasant stuff, but it's a must-see for anyone interested in men and women, fathers and sons, and the kind of murder mystery in which the real casualty is the human soul.
|
| 90 |
Film.com
Affliction could be their (Nolte, Coburn) finest couple of hours on film; they do seem to be father and son, rather than actors playing these roles.
|
| 88 |
ReelViews
Affliction is for anyone willing to take the journey into the heart and soul of a troubled man on the edge.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Tribune
Violence may provide entertainment value in more crass or commercially minded projects, but in the unflinching world of Affliction, it leads only to the ruination of your soul. [5 February 1999, Friday, p.D]
|
| 80 |
Newsweek
Schrader has never been one to coddle an audience, and this is as uncompromising a vision as he has given us.
|
| 80 |
Washington Post
Like the bitter cold in which it's set, Affliction bites hard and true.
|
| 80 |
LA Weekly
Affliction is a work of realist art rich in quotidian detail, a Grimm fairy tale about a community under siege, and a lament for a good man gone bad for nothing.
|
| 75 |
New York Post
Rod Dreher
A compelling, at times bone-chilling study of the male character in crisis.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
Nolte, reinforced by the bleak discretion of Schrader's direction and a wonderful supporting cast, makes the most of the opportunity.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Schrader seems to understand these characters implicitly, and the result is probably the best film he has directed.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Nolte gives one of his most fully realized performances, Coburn makes an amazingly powerful comeback, and Schrader's filmmaking has never been more expressive or assured.
|
| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A tormented and tormenting man uses violence to break the historic chain of violence, then bequeaths to his loved ones the most precious gift he can give -- his total silence and perpetual absence.
|
| 70 |
The New Republic
Nolte and Coburn are so powerful that they distort what, we are told, is the story's theme. [Feb. 1, 1999]
|
| 70 |
Time
But the actor (Nolte) finds truth in Wade's emotional clumsiness, in the despair of a man who hasn't the tools or the cool to survive. There are too many of these men in life, and not enough films that tell their sad tales.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
James Coburn plays father in what may be the best performance of his career. [30 December 1998, Life, p.3D]
|
| 60 |
Variety
The pervasive chill, ugly feelings and downward spiral of the narrative make this a work that requires an equally sober, serious-minded attitude on the part of the viewer.
|
| 60 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Schrader has always been better as a writer and a critic than as a dramatist, which is why his most successful work has either been published in film journals or directed by Martin Scorsese. His flat, awkward staging diminishes some good performances -- particularly those of Nolte and a welcome Sissy Spacek.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Caustic and despairing, Shrader's film lacks the delicate beauty of Atom Agoyan's "Sweet Hereafter," but has just as much bitter power.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
A brave effort to stare down the specter of American failure, it gets off on the wrong foot by pretentiously turning the doomed hero into a Christ figure--a traffic cop with arms extended in crucifixion mode--before the story even gets started.
|
| 40 |
TNT RoughCut
Jennifer Nowitzky
More frustrating, however, are the many side stories, which introduce potential conflicts but never fully form, as well as completely unnecessary voice-overs that come late in the movie and culminate in a final monologue, which tells the audience what to think, rather than allowing us to decide what it's all about for ourselves.
|
| 30 |
Slate
An affectless piece of moviemaking.
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