Honeydripper

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

Honeydripper is classic Sayles cinema: an insightful sketch of assorted common folk whose criss-crossing dreams and agendas unfold against larger, more powerful (and sometimes crushing) sociopolitical and cultural forces.

Variety John Anderson

The result is one of Sayles' best films. The music, a mix of blues, seminal rock and newcomer Gary Clark Jr.'s performance, will be an obvious draw, as will the performances by some leading African-American actors.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Rich with characters and flowing with music.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Danny Glover, as hard-rock reliable as Spencer Tracy in his prime, plays onetime pianist Tyrone "Pine Top" Purvis.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Honeydripper offers a leisurely, atmospheric production with lots of time to appreciate his largely African-American cast, along with rocking musical interludes and just the faintest wash of spirituality.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Music may be Honeydripper's most indelible element and Sayles and longtime collaborator, composer Mason Daring, seamlessly incorporate several original songs alongside the soundtrack's period tunes.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's about ordinary people living in the shadow of nagging, day-to-day racism, and about the music that reminds them of what's right with the world rather than what's wrong.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Typical of a pretty good Sayles movie. There are few, if any, heroes and villains.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

With Honeydripper, Sayles has done what he always does: bring together a group of characters and allow us to relish their interaction. His affection for the characters is both obvious and infectious. We like them, warts and all.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

In its first half, Honeydripper trickles. In its second, it really flows.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

''Everything got a rhythm, even pulling cotton off the plant,'' a field hand offers helpfully. Like his eager young bluesman when he finally hits the stage, Sayles hits exactly the right notes.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

John Sayles ventures into August Wilson territory with Honeydripper.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The subtlety is the beauty of it.

The New Yorker David Denby

At its best when the characters sit around, dither, and ruminate. Moviemaking seems to have become almost magically easy for this independent writer-director. He builds a detailed atmosphere, brings his good people and his bad together, and lets them jabber at one another; the virtuosity is rhetorical rather than visual.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

His heart -- and musical soul -- is in the right place, but the film makes you at times uncomfortable with black and Southern stereotypes that may hinder some from fully enjoying an otherwise benign and cheerful tall tale of the Saturday night when rock came to rural Alabama.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

There are precisely zero surprises in how things play out--the main thread is basically "Big Night" revisited--but the film gets better as it goes along, and it closes with a rousing musical flourish, as immensely charismatic newcomer Clark Jr. finally hits the stage. At last, Sayles' sleepy drama wakes with a start.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

There is a great movie to be made about the first stirrings of rock 'n' roll. Honeydripper is not that film, but it certainly whets your appetite for it.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Honeydripper’s story isn’t anything you haven’t seen a dozen times before, but where Sayles succeeds (where Sayles always succeeds) is in his ability to dramatize the psychological and linguistic details that give identity to a subculture struggling for survival.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A contemplative fable, Honeydripper locates the moment but misses the heart-pounding, gut-wrenching explosion -- the history is there, the thrill isn't.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Has John Sayles finally lost his mojo? How anyone could take a subject like the moment the Delta blues went electric and suck the joy and fury out of it is anybody's guess, but the talky, dull "Honeydripper" represents playwriting rather than filmmaking. And didactic playwriting at that.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Like previous films by the literary-minded auteur John Sayles, Honeydripper takes forever to develop its characters, its period and its location. But once it's done all that, the payoffs are rich.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Honeydripper is agreeable, well-intentioned and very, very slow. Sadly, it illustrates the difference between an archetype and a stereotype. When the first falls flat, it turns into the other and becomes a cliché.

Empire Anna Hart

A gentle, enjoyable musical fable.

Portland Oregonian Staff (Not credited)

flat and disappointing.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

True to his stolid, humanist instincts and characteristically stodgy directorial style, writer-director John Sayles creates a story more educational than engrossing.

New York Post Kyle Smith

The movie is well-acted, but it's as talky as if it were written for the stage, with fatally slow pacing. Strictly for hard-core Sayles fans and maybe for lovers of American roots music.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Trudging nobly under a mantle of impeccably earnest intentions and a fussy, too-quaint-by-half production design, Honeydripper lags and drags to its utterly predictable end. There's not a spark of spontaneity or soul about it.