Me Without You

Slate David Edelstein

Rich, finely judged, gorgeously acted movie.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Friendship matters to those of us who still claim membership in the human race, and Goldbacher's merciless autopsy on it is both illuminating and dispiriting.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Has a bracing truth that's refreshing after the phoniness of female-bonding pictures like "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood."

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This film's intelligence and forthrightness about the things women sometimes do to one another -- and its resoluteness about where the line should be drawn in terms of selflessness between friends -- set it head and shoulders above most contemporary movies that deal with friendships between women.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Michelle Williams turns in a performance that is seamless, canny and artistically mature.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

You won't want to miss it if you care about movies that dare to chart intimacies in our age of spectacle, or about up-and-coming female performers and underused male veterans finding roles worthy of their gifts.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A chick movie? Well, yes, but it's a whole lot cooler than that one with the "Ya-Ya's" in the title.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

A powerful new film from British writer-director Sandra Goldbacher.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Offers a clear-eyed chronicle of a female friendship that is more complex and honest than anything represented in a Hollywood film.

Chicago Tribune Lou Carlozo

The only the bum steer in Me Without You comes in the person of Daniel, played by Kyle MacLachlan of "Twin Peaks" fame. It's hard to tell whether MacLachlan was dealt a bum hand in an otherwise fine screenplay or acted on auto-pilot.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Love. Lust. Recrimination. Jealousy. Resolution. This British female friendship melodrama has them all.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Anchored by Friel and Williams's exceptional performances, the film's power lies in its complexity. Nothing is black and white, starting with the girls' complicated relationships with their parents, which are simultaneously nurturing and fraught with psychological peril.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

An engaging, straightforward narrative about two childhood playmates and the stages of their friendship from 1973 to 2001.

Variety David Rooney

The two appealingly played central characters and the film's enjoyable evocation of the 1970s and '80s keep it buoyant and diverting.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Under its drab contemporary trappings, the movie, is really a Jane Austen-like moral parable in which goodness is rewarded and selfishness punished.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

More predictable than it ought to be - you can set your watch by the appearance of the mournful Nick Drake song on the soundtrack.

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

Me Without You is at its truest and most affecting when it steps back from the gig gling, bitching and nail biting to reveal how the compulsion to control and appropriate can be born of simple love and admiration.

Film Threat KJ Doughton

A sum greater than its parts. The viewer is taken on a journey spanning nearly three decades of bittersweet camaraderie and history, in which we feel that we truly know what makes Holly and Marina tick, and our hearts go out to them as both continue to negotiate their imperfect, love-hate relationship.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Aided by raw, committed performances from her two leads, Goldbacher makes them tough company for themselves and anyone else around them, on or off the screen.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

This British drama is so overplotted it smothers the two main characters as much as they do each other.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Essentially humorless, Me Without You manages some pleasing textures all the same.

Film Threat Merle Bertrand

Not enough to hold the audience's interest, especially with such shallow simpletons as these two women in the leads.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

A slight, smartly dressed bit of melodrama that thinks it's gritty when it's really a bit of puff.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Tough, unsentimental British film.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Though it boasts excellent performances by Anna Friel and Michelle Williams as bosom buddies whose lives meander over three decades, it plods on with a wearying predictability and some truly terrible dialogue.