| 75 |
New York Post
Risks trivializing history and pandering to feminist fantasies, but it may be the year's most fearless movie.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Funny, eccentric and touchingly just, combining a unique interpretation of the time with an offbeat sense of humor.
|
| 74 |
Mr. Showbiz
Banderas may have been crazy to make such a heady directorial debut, but it's hard not to be charmed by his ambitions.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
The pieces don't always fit together smoothly, but there's a lot of flavorful work to savor.
|
| 60 |
Variety
The opposition of the two dramas winds up in gratifyingly moral and philosophical territory.
|
| 60 |
TNT RoughCut
Sjohnna McCray
Banderas has taken a brilliant novel and made a small movie with lots of bright moments, and honestly, that's quite an accomplishment for his debut.
|
| 60 |
Chicago Reader
Takes a while to arrive at what it has to say, but some of the performances kept me occupied in the meantime.
|
| 60 |
The New York Times
Banderas directs capably enough to keep the film lively.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
It's troubling to watch it stray and ramble as first-time director Antonio Banderas struggles to pull disparate elements together.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times
An ungainly fit of three stories that have no business being shoehorned into the same movie.
|
| 50 |
Portland Oregonian
Banderas' direction is a bit of everything and a lot of not much.
|
| 50 |
Film.com
An Almodovar-like blend of laughs, drama and uplift, filled with the kinds of pop-art colors and pop-out performances that Almodovar loves.
|
| 50 |
Miami Herald
Inadvertently does with the civil rights movement exactly what Banderas set out not to do: trivializes it.
|
| 50 |
New York Daily News
Mismatch of tone and material.
|
| 50 |
USA Today
Were some group to launch a rival to the Oscars called The Wackys, it could do worse than make crazed Crazy its first recipient.
|
| 50 |
Charlotte Observer
Tries with intermittent success to juggle two stories.
|
| 50 |
Dallas Observer
Feels like two films that aren't closely related enough, either tonally or narratively, to warrant their intertwining.
|
| 50 |
Austin Chronicle
There's much to enjoy here as long as your expectations aren't too high.
|
| 40 |
Rolling Stone
Somehow, Lucille's plight is meant to comment astutely on the civil-rights movement. Now that IS crazy.
|
| 40 |
LA Weekly
Nicole Campos
The two disparate yet thematically linked storylines are far too faithfully transposed for a feature-length treatment -- crammed together, they're denied the space to flesh out as a cohesive whole.
|
| 40 |
Salon.com
Disappoints with its simplistic, hollow narrative and characters.
|
| 40 |
Los Angeles Times
The juxtaposition of grim reality and pure fantasy doesn't work...the entire film seem artificial and contrived.
|
| 33 |
Entertainment Weekly
Steve Daly
As campy as a flick by Banderas' evident artistic mentor, Pedro Almódovar.
|
| 30 |
TV Guide
(Griffith's) appearance often verges on the grotesque. Which, come to think of it, could be said of the movie as well.
|
| 30 |
Film.com
Moira Macdonald
Appears to be several different movies spliced together, with unfortunate results.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
Mark Childress, who wrote the screenplay based upon his book of the same name, would have been better off leaving this Southern Gothic between two covers.
|
| 25 |
Chicago Tribune
Although Banderas occasionally shows flashes of style, individual elements too often go together like grits in a puff pastry.
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