| 100 |
The New York Times
Like finding that perfect stage of moderate drunkenness in which the senses are sharpened rather than dulled, and time passes with leisurely grace.
|
| 100 |
Baltimore Sun
It's like Chekhov with a British accent.
|
| 100 |
Salon.com
Unassuming masterpiece about life, love and the cruel joke of old age.
|
| 100 |
Chicago Tribune
A movie I loved on first sight and, even more important, love in remembrance. Taken all in all, there's only one last thing to say about it. Go.
|
| 90 |
Rolling Stone
A funny and touching film that is gorgeously acted by a British cast to rival Gosford Park's.
|
| 90 |
Slate
Shows the dying tremors of a generation, and you might feel as if you can see every molecule, every atom give up the ghost.
|
| 90 |
New York Magazine
The lifelong friends in Fred Schepisi's marvelous Last Orders actually seem like lifelong friends.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
The movie's pace is unhurried by Hollywood standards, but it's all the richer in character detail.
|
| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
Gathering its forces slowly, this careful, thoughtful film, quietly but deeply moving, is dramatic without seeming to be.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Sad and lovely.
|
| 90 |
LA Weekly
Superbly adapted by Fred Schepisi from the Booker Prize-winning novel by Graham Swift, Last Orders pays quietly passionate tribute to the unsung working-class generation that fought World War II and survived to take up apparently humdrum lives.
|
| 90 |
Variety
Delicately handled and superbly textured, this fine adaptation of Graham Swift's Booker Prize-winning novel deals with all the really big subjects: love, friendship, death, life.
|
| 90 |
New Times (L.A.)
The film's biggest strength is the same characteristic that may cause people to underrate it: that the group of friends we watch onscreen feel not like England's greatest actors showing off, but rather a group of friends who have indeed known each other for years through life's little triumphs and large tragedies.
|
| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Too many films about the dead involve mourning, and too few involve laughter. Yet at lucky funerals there is a desire to remember the good times.
|
| 88 |
Boston Globe
Richly textured, beautifully acted.
|
| 88 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
A superb film that begins with death, ends in renewal, and finds almost as much to laugh about as to cry for.
|
| 80 |
TV Guide
Given the number of characters involved and the fact that the film flashes back and forth over a 40-year period, the film flows beautifully, thanks in large part to excellent casting and Kate Williams's fluid editing.
|
| 80 |
Time
Wry humor and even a certain sexiness break through the reserve of a rueful, realistic, but finally emotionally rewarding film.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
Staff (Not Credited)
I was hooked from the start.
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The stars ultimately carry the day, the film cumulatively builds both an emotional power and tender wisdom that's very affecting.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
It is remarkably, unsentimentally dramatized by Fred Schepisi, courtesy of the pitch-perfect performances of its ensemble British cast.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
It's a warm, skillful excavation of what look like ordinary lives, ones that aren't so simple once you dig a little deeper.
|
| 70 |
Wall Street Journal
If truth be told, the film is less than the sum of its parts; the main problem is the fragmented narrative structure, a legacy of the literary source. Still, it's a joy to see men and women with dense life stories played by powerful actors with long and distinguished careers.
|
| 70 |
Film Threat
A friend called Fred Schepisi's ensemble drama "a crusty old white man's 'Joy Luck Club'" -- an assessment that isn't without some kernel of truth.
|
| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
The storytelling may be ordinary, but the cast is one of those all-star reunions.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The actors do their best, particularly the impeccable Mirren, but Schepisi draws a shroud of chaste dullness over their scenes and lays on an energy- sapping score.
|
| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Good performances by a distinguished cast don't quite overcome the weaknesses of the disappointing screenplay.
|
| 50 |
New York Post
A ho-hum male weepie/road comedy that's worth watching mostly because of a once-in-a-lifetime gathering of England's greatest working-class actors.
|
| 50 |
The New Yorker
Never quite shrugs off its literary manners. [18 & 25 Feb 2002, p. 200]
|
| 40 |
Austin Chronicle
The temporal jumps between the present and varying points in the past deprive the film of a sense of completeness; the transitions from scene to scene are largely disorienting, leaving you struggling to find your bearings.
|
| 30 |
Village Voice
The carload of codgers in Fred Schepisi's Last Orders merely bellyache, philosophize, crack unfunny jokes, and ruminate simplemindedly about Death.
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