Spider

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

In this small and very smart film, Cronenberg does several things at once and makes them all look effortless, capturing various shadings of consciousness and versions of reality.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Arguably the subtlest, most carefully textured film of Cronenberg's career.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Spider lasts in the mind and it's built to last -- this is a movie that invites and repays repeated viewings.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Exciting spectacle of a master director reining in his abilities to create a work that is etched in acid, burnished in smoke.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

His story is sad, compelling and morbidly, tragically watchable.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The most elegantly crafted and confidently directed of all his (Cronenberg's) films, it's a calm, chilling portrait of a blighted soul and, just as calmly but quite stunningly, an evocation of the thought processes behind the blight.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

It takes an especially fine-tuned director and an inventive actor to cut as close to the bone as Spider does.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Spider is not a pulse-quickening experience, but Fiennes's art makes it engrossing.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

In an instance of director, stars and material melding flawlessly, Spider is a brilliantly realized depiction of a mentally ill individual.

Variety David Rooney

This slow but brilliantly sustained journey into madness is fronted by a remarkable performance from Ralph Fiennes and superb backup from Miranda Richardson in a triple role.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

I was floored by Cronenberg's mastery of the material. Fiennes gives one of his finest performances; Miranda Richardson, playing at least three characters in the protagonist's twisted vision, is no less impressive.

Newsweek David Ansen

The superbly acted Spider is muted in comparison: it’s a quiet nightmare, painted in hospital greens and rust browns.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Deliciously wicked, strangely poetic portrait (adapted by Patrick McGrath from his own novel) of a schizophrenic man at once tyrannized and elevated by oedipal terrors.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's Cronenberg's finest film, it's star Ralph Fiennes's riskiest role, it's a tour de force for actress Miranda Richardson.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

What catches us in Spider's web -- besides the indelible performances of Fiennes and Richardson -- is the director's sympathy with this freak man-child who struggles to order his confused memories into a kind of truth.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

This is a rare adaptation where the script (by McGrath himself) heads straight for the novel's horrible essence, reproducing it non-verbally and in an even more concentrated form.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A shocker for devotees of stylish angst and psychological torment. You'll have to watch it with patience and great attention, but it richly rewards that patience.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Cronenberg's most disciplined exploration yet of that shadowy realm: the world refracted through the prism of a schizophrenic mind.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It isn't likely to drive anybody out of the theater -- although getting people out of the house to see a meticulous, minimalist study of madness and memory may be another story.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

An eensy-weensy movie sustained by two utterly gigantic performances.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Brilliantly realized but bone-chillingly bleak.

Film Threat Darrin Keene

This is the film that "Shine" and A Beautiful Mind could not be, a story about schizophrenia that doesn’t neatly resolve its complex subject matter.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Were he only trying to remark on that world's creepiness, Cronenberg would still succeed brilliantly, if coldly, but his sympathy makes the film.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Cronenberg’s nonlinear narrative is trying at times – it keeps you nearly as off-kilter as the characters, and surely that’s intentional – but as a character piece about madness and stymied dreams, it’s remarkably realistic.

USA Today Mike Clark

This is the kind of well-made movie you wish well but you don't particularly wish to see again.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The details of the film and of the performances are meticulously realized; there is a reward in seeing artists working so well. But the story has no entry or exit, and is cold, sad and hopeless. Afterward, I feel more admiration than gratitude.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A cat's cradle of creepy childhood memory oozing unreliably from the mind of an aging, desiccated, paranoid schizophrenic, played quite amazingly by a mumbling, stooped, shifty-eyed Ralph Fiennes.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Fiennes' very skin participates in the project -- his fingernails are nicotine-stained the color of tea bags. The performance works; it's a ballet, a concerto of big, big Acting.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

If you have the patience, its almost endless silences and extremely slow pacing eventually pay off.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

This superbly realized, clammy and unsettling movie doesn't hinge on plot. Claustrophobic and profoundly creepy, Spider isn't a pleasant viewing experience, and that's the point.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Spider is a difficult film, but an inspired one, the movie equivalent of eating a meal of artfully prepared eel or sea urchin. It's for those with adventurous tastes and no fear of squishy textures.

Slate David Edelstein

The inner life of the young Spider is just screaming to be taken to the next level--but Cronenberg mulishly won't go there. What goes wrong with Spider is pretty basic: The audience has no idea why it was made.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

A kind of psychological whodunit, but without the thrills. The clue-making is rather desultory, as if Cronenberg were indulging a narrative strategy he didn’t really care for.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Its minutely detailed revelations work their way under the skin like slivers of glass.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Spider as a character is a fantasizing detective, but the movie is no Singing Detective (the high-water mark of the sub-genre). This film rarely rises above a murmur.