Mrs. Harris

People WeeklyTom Gliatto

The tone here can be offputtingly strange: brittle, flinty yet over the top. [20 Feb 2006, p.37]

Chicago Sun-TimesDoug Elfman

Scene by scene, "Mrs. Harris" overcomes the rote nature of true crime stories.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

Their dance of love and rejection, of giddiness and bitterness, is a warped waltz, and Kingsley and Bening clearly relish every step.

LA WeeklyRobert Abele

This kind of brittlely accurate performance is something to watch in the hands of an actress like Bening, who seems incapable --even during the film’s most blackly humorous moments -- of a false, Fatal Attraction–like note.

Village VoiceJoy Press

Annette Bening is stunning in this smart biopic.

NewsdayDiane Werts

"Mrs. Harris" unfolds with a basic playfulness that keeps the mood light even as the story becomes dark indeed.

New York MagazineJohn Leonard

Entertaining... What [Nagy] has done is tailor this tabloid material to several different narrative tastes, which alternate as the movie shifts from love affair to temper tantrum to gunfire to murder trial and back again.

Entertainment WeeklyAlynda Wheat

Jean appears to have liked humiliation... Such masochism is hard to watch, even with a stellar cast. [24 Feb 2006, p.58]

San Jose Mercury NewsCharlie McCollum

Bening provides the spark that drives "Mrs. Harris," keeping its darkly funny irony from degenerating into campy humor.

Detroit Free PressMike Duffy

Simultaneously appealing and rather sadly appalling, "Mrs. Harris" gets at the messy truth of it all in a distinctively mischievous manner.

Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart

The constant toing-and-froing of “Mrs. Harris” might have gotten tiresome, as an earlier HBO effort at revisionist biography, “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” did. Bening, though, is somehow able to conjure up a completely new mood for each time and setting.

Los Angeles TimesDaryl H. Miller

It's a psychologically rich study of love's mutability, presented in a boldly stylized, darkly comic manner.

Chicago Tribune

Addicting, like watching a really grimy train wreck, this sorry, sordid tale of Harris' obsessive love and descent into prescription pill addiction is icy, ironic and typically HBO in the frankness of its sex talk.

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen

"Mrs. Harris" is interesting but not intimate. It's cold, aloof and distant, much like the relationship it depicts between the principal characters.

New York PostLinda Stasi

Since I myself am a sucker for a true-crime cheesefest, I was loving this movie until I was rudely reminded by my friend Denise that, "This is neither good sleaze nor serious true crime! It's half a satire, and half a true crime movie!"

The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley

In this version, Mrs. Harris, at times appealing, at other times brittle and censorious, is hard to fathom.

Washington PostTom Shales

While the film could not be called a rollicking success, it seldom if ever pauses long enough to be ordinary, complacent or conventionally minded.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

The costumes are gorgeous, the sets are time-period gems, and the actors are among the best.... But the story to which they've been appended is hollow. It's like an exquisitely wrapped empty box.

TV GuideMatt Roush

The movie's fun to watch, but also rather hollow, reminding me of last season's HBO movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Both are well acted but with such obvious stories to tell they soon grow tiresome.

Wall Street JournalDorothy Rabinowitz

Nagy's showy ventures in stylization, the raucous jokiness substituted for story are heavy encumbrances for this tale.

Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert

Pointless and inert.