Waking the Dead

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

One of the most powerful romances of recent years, it is as generous as they come.

TNT RoughCut Bilge Ebiri

Gordon directs with a graceful precision and shorthand that makes the story seem simple, though it's anything but. Indeed, it's fascinatingly complex, juggling time periods and political, mystical, and psychological themes without ever losing touch with the core message: Love conquers all.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

It is a film of uncommon intelligence and rigor that illuminates a complex era, and the romance at its center is also one of exceptional passion and honesty.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

A film with a real depth, resonance and texture, and room for an ensemble of supporting characters.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's almost startling to see a film that believes in itself and its characters so deeply.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Structurally flawed, occasionally shlocky, but written with unusual intelligence and subtlety.

Baltimore Sun Milton Kent

Gordon deserves credit for at least attempting to deal with political themes, and the tension isn't bad either.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Offbeat tale, which tackles weighty themes. But sentimentality overtakes intelligence.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

It's a romantic weepie.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

A pensive, reflective movie, more or less equal in tone to Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm," yet, because of its temporal breadth and tight emotional focus, it packs a more intimate punch.

LA Weekly F. X. Feeney

Catches the volatile beauty of what it was to be alive and politically aware in the early '70s with a rare accuracy and depth.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

This wonderfully acted romance brings the touching fantasy "Truly, Madly, Deeply" to mind.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Has a good heart and some fine performances, but is too muddled at the story level to involve us emotionally.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

As involved as Crudup and Connelly beseech you to be with this story, their very youthfulness, their nagging lack of adulthood, keeps the film from being anything more credible than a tight grad-school tryst.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Its virtues are still genuine and durable enough to resist the blandishments of hype.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

The movie is a shambles, a rambling, disjointed love tragedy with a story that amounts to little more than a mess of fade-outs, sloppy montages, and dramatic sketches.

Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman

Crudup tends to take average parts in standard genre films and turn them into something special.

TV Guide Ken Fox

A tale of conscience lost and found becomes little more than a smart but tepid ghost story for idealists and '60s survivors, and not a terribly spooky one at that.

Chicago Tribune Marc Caro

By the time of Fielding's and Sarah's final, gooey encounter, she's not the only one who needs waking.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The film is one of the more adult offerings out there in a spring movie season peppered with martial arts and superheroes. It may be just what you're looking for.

Film.com Peter Brunette

Its evocation of the politics and Zeitgeist of the late '60s is so right on, as we used to say, that it left me stunned.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

It's too fragmented and diffuse to ever bring its parts together in any really satisfying manner.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Enough to anesthetize the living.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Forever stumbling over itself and breaking its own spell.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Gorden teases out some affecting scenes, but not enough to carry a film that promises more than it delivers.

Portland Oregonian Bob Campbell

As so often happens, politics and religion add up to a double dose of self-righteousness.

USA Today Staff [Not Credited]

Spanning the counterculture '70s to the more career-oriented '80s and doing justice to neither decade, this event-heavy adaptation of Scott Spencer's novel may give viewers whiplash.