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Mrs. Harris


9.0

based on 21 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
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Official Show Site

Starring Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Burstyn, Frances Fisher, Michael Gross, Cloris Leachman, and Mary McDonnell

Writer-director Phyllis Nagy's made-for-HBO biopic chronicles the tragic relationship between divorced school headmistress Jean Harris and "Scarsdale Diet" creator Dr. Herman "Hy" Tarnower, which ended with the latter's murder in 1980.

GENRE(S):	Drama, True Story
RELEASE DATE:	August 1, 2006

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

People Weekly Tom Gliatto

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

100

Chicago Sun-Times Doug Elfman

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

New York Daily News David Hinckley

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

LA Weekly Robert 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 Voice Joy Press

Annette Bening is stunning in this smart biopic.

Newsday Diane Werts

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

New York Magazine John 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 Weekly Alynda 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 News Charlie McCollum

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

Detroit Free Press Mike Duffy

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

Kansas City Star Aaron 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 Times Daryl 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-Gazette Rob 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 Post Linda 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 Times Alessandra Stanley

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

Washington Post Tom 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 Today Robert 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 Guide Matt 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 Journal Dorothy Rabinowitz

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

Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert

Pointless and inert.

The average user rating for this tv show is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jack K gave it a10:
Excellent acting, writing, directing. Complicated, funny, asks difficult questions. Should have won all the tv movie awards this year.

Lori gave it a10:
Refreshingly complex. Brilliant performances. This film does not spell out the motivations and intentions of its characters: the viewer must think and wonder while watching. If only more films would assume that the viewer is up to that task!

marcela f gave it a9:
Would have liked knowing the grounds for clemancy.

Sterling M gave it a10:
Truly unusual, thought provoking movie with great performances and excellent technical contributions

Ted M gave it a1:
How on earth has this movie managed to get such high ratings. It's one thing to have a movie that's consistently wacked out, like Clockwork Orange or Fear and Loathing in LV, but this movie is all over the place. Sedate one minute, hallucinatory the next, muted and legalistic after that, then Spike Lee-esque, then grindingly tedious, then gonzo. For such a simple story, Nagy makes it extremely convoluted -- in the hopes, I suppose, of making it seem more complex and psychological than the Diet Doc murder really was. The whole thing felt to me like an unpleasant feminist's rants, given while suffering from a bad acid trip.

Kathleen S gave it a10:
Loved it! Stylishly done with first-rate acting.

Jack C gave it a10:
Kudos to HBO for putting this very grown up movie on its station. It won't appeal to kids or to those who want to come and go while it's on, but for people who want to be challenged to think, it's the perfect thing. Very funny, very smart, heartbreaking.