Charlotte Gray

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Has an intoxicating, old-fashioned feel about it. We are instantly lost in the period, thanks to cinematographer Dion Beebe's almost haloed images and Joseph Bennett's authentic, restrained production design.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Charlotte Gray is not a subtle movie, but it is an honorable and surprisingly gripping one.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

Lush, even juicy entertainment.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Cate Blanchett has the title role, and she does wonders with it, bringing a degree of passion but also suggesting something essentially unevolved in Charlotte's character.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Displays so much promise with its beautiful cinematography and superb portrayal by Cate Blanchett that you scarcely notice (or even care) that the story is a bit thin.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

An old-fashioned romantic adventure film strongly acted, ably directed and written with stolid sobriety, the film feels, save for a few moments of verbal or physical intensity, as if it could have been made 60 years ago with Ingrid Bergman in the lead.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

This is a movie that, for all its often high intelligence and skill, seems emotionally underdone, bogged down in tony literary and cinematic cliches.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

From a purely technical perspective, Charlotte Gray is expertly made -- the cinematography and music are evocative, and lead actress Cate Blanchett has no problem holding our attention. But, while Armstrong gets the notes right, she fails to play them with inspiration.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

The radiant Blanchett makes Charlotte's individual journey from lovelorn lady to independent woman believable and involving, and that's ultimately what counts the most -- even if the destination is less than ideal.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Not a movie, it's a museum catalog of gorgeously rendered portraits and landscapes. What a crashing disappointment.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A frustratingly inert story, a bookend to last year's wooden ''Captain Corelli's Mandolin.''

TV Guide Ken Fox

Armstrong is fortunate to have the luminous Blanchett, who, along with her equally fine supporting cast, helps compensate for what the film lacks.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The story has inherent emotional power, but Jeremy Brock's formula-bound screenplay rarely soars beyond cliches.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's ultimately just numb, a sober wartime romance roused only by Blanchett's intensity and Crudup's passionate swings between righteous anger and moral zeal. The rest is just tired melodrama.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Blanchett, Crudup and Gambon stand above and somehow apart from the absurdities of the screenplay.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Director Gillian Armstrong drains all the emotional energy out of the people who dot her movie's lovely landscape.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

The narrative is unexpectedly sleepy, excepting the occasional flashy set piece.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

The setting and circumstances of the war overwhelm the personal story and diminish the dilemma of the title character's love life.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Rarely has a movie that looked so good on paper fallen so flat as the aptly named Charlotte Gray. It's not a bad movie. Bad movies have more flavor.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Those who do go with the fantasy are probably hopeless romantics.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Charlotte Gray, for all Blanchett's radiance and intelligence in the title role, is a bore.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Undone by Blanchett's dull, wooden delivery. She's the pap that kills the pulp the rest of the film is bellowing out to be.

New Times (L.A.) Jean Oppenheimer

Never rises above the level of a 1950s-era adolescent romance novel.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A bland and dour screen version of Sebastian Faulks' highly engrossing bestseller.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

I never thought that a thoughtful director like Gillian Armstrong would get trapped in such Euro-nonsense, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

It isn't as ridiculous as this year's other version of a local best seller set during WWII ("Captain Corelli's Mandolin"), but it's arguably even less entertaining.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

The movie works so diligently to convey a spirit of heroic uplift and fails so completely that it feels like a tragic misfire.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Director Gillian Armstrong turns Sebastian Faulks' pungent novel about World War II into a soporific.