Crazy in Alabama

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Risks trivializing history and pandering to feminist fantasies, but it may be the year's most fearless movie.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Funny, eccentric and touchingly just, combining a unique interpretation of the time with an offbeat sense of humor.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Banderas may have been crazy to make such a heady directorial debut, but it's hard not to be charmed by his ambitions.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The pieces don't always fit together smoothly, but there's a lot of flavorful work to savor.

Variety Todd McCarthy

The opposition of the two dramas winds up in gratifyingly moral and philosophical territory.

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.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Takes a while to arrive at what it has to say, but some of the performances kept me occupied in the meantime.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Banderas directs capably enough to keep the film lively.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

It's troubling to watch it stray and ramble as first-time director Antonio Banderas struggles to pull disparate elements together.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

An ungainly fit of three stories that have no business being shoehorned into the same movie.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Banderas' direction is a bit of everything and a lot of not much.

Film.com John Hartl

An Almodovar-like blend of laughs, drama and uplift, filled with the kinds of pop-art colors and pop-out performances that Almodovar loves.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Inadvertently does with the civil rights movement exactly what Banderas set out not to do: trivializes it.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Mismatch of tone and material.

USA Today Mike Clark

Were some group to launch a rival to the Oscars called The Wackys, it could do worse than make crazed Crazy its first recipient.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Tries with intermittent success to juggle two stories.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Feels like two films that aren't closely related enough, either tonally or narratively, to warrant their intertwining.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

There's much to enjoy here as long as your expectations aren't too high.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Somehow, Lucille's plight is meant to comment astutely on the civil-rights movement. Now that IS crazy.

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.

Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams

Disappoints with its simplistic, hollow narrative and characters.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

The juxtaposition of grim reality and pure fantasy doesn't work...the entire film seem artificial and contrived.

Entertainment Weekly Steve Daly

As campy as a flick by Banderas' evident artistic mentor, Pedro Almódovar.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

(Griffith's) appearance often verges on the grotesque. Which, come to think of it, could be said of the movie as well.

Film.com Moira Macdonald

Appears to be several different movies spliced together, with unfortunate results.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

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.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Although Banderas occasionally shows flashes of style, individual elements too often go together like grits in a puff pastry.