Till Human Voices Wake Us

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Like the best of poems, it doesn't lend itself to easy understanding. But, like the best of poems, it's extremely provocative, to both imagination and intellect.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Nevertheless, in mid-reverie, there's no denying the pleasure in falling under its little spell -- till human voices wake us, and we frown.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

There's a somber tone to Petroni's work here--enhanced by Roger Lanser's shadowy cinematography and handicapped a bit by a schmaltzy Hollywood-type score--and there's also plenty of episodic life stuff.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Stays emotionally mired because of a static screenplay that fails to express its issues dramatically.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Petroni's directorial debut is too bittersweet and atmospheric for its own good, wrapping a potentially strong story in too many layers of misty emotion.

Boston Globe Janice Page

Despite being well acted and sweetly moving when it strips down to the tender poem at its heart, Till Human Voices Wake Us spends too much time playing to an otherworldly suspense that simply isn't there.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Quickly causes viewers to lose patience, then interest.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Pearce and Bonham Carter are remarkably photogenic, but the movie is fitful and mannered to a fault, full of watery allusions and stormy scares.

Variety David Stratton

This dank, gloomy essay into the supernatural tries hard to create an intriguing mood in which fate guides the lives of its wounded protagonists, but few will be interested in the outcome.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

The two young actors are very engaging, but the chemistry between Pearce and Bonham Carter is less than zero and there's altogether too much heavy-handed, watery symbolism for comfort.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

As a meditation on love and loss, the award-winning script is perhaps too blunt.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

The film strives to be poetic, but it exposes nothing especially moving or relevant. Rather, the engaging leads wander around like actors lost in an ill-fated exercise in subtext.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The movie's hokey mysticism and heaving melancholy is closer in spirit to a solemn Hallmark greeting card.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Petroni takes the poem at face value, turning diaphanous literary imagery opaque and literal.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

So busy building its symbolic frame that it forgets to develop its characters, or even to make them likable.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

I was seduced part of the time, thanks largely to Bonham Carter's sensuality, but the whole is unsatisfying, and it's tempting to see the imposed recutting as a major source of the problem.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Voices is visually impressive, and it sustains a mood of downbeat romanticism throughout, but because it lacks an essential core of humanity, it's never as haunting or resonant as it should be.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

What if the filmmaker had found a way to reconcile his two storylines into a cohesive whole? Wouldn’t that have made a wonderfully affecting film? Why yes, it would have.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There must still be a kind of moony young adolescent girl for which this film would be enormously appealing, if television has not already exterminated the domestic example of that species.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Kept in check by his character's neuroses, Pearce holds our attention throughout, but it isn't until near the end that he manages to break free of his character's and his director's inhibitions.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

I'd recommend you actively or passively forget this one.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Another mystery that gives up its secrets all too quickly, Till Human Voices Wake Us is named for a T.S. Eliot line -- and it proves a woefully evocative title for this snoozy supernatural pastoral.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

The love story that is supposed to drive the film fails to ignite a single spark--and, hence, the film fails to generate a single iota of interest from the viewer.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

I can find nothing nice to note about this excruciatingly slow, overly tasteful piece of whimsy.