| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

A routine memory piece about long-buried family secrets that bubble back to the surface to wreak havoc.

| Mar 4, 2005

Confusing the profound with the pretentious, director Bessai packs the story with elliptical, ominous flashbacks that undercut all the advances he makes with the contemporary tale.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 4, 2005

Tenderly touches our emotions.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 4, 2005

Sensitively played but ultimately undone by its unconventional approach.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 4, 2005

Sir Ian McKellen is at his tweediest and most persnickety as the title character in Emile, the portrait of an eminent scientist who returns from England to his homeland, Canada, to receive an honorary degree from the University of Victoria.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 3, 2005

It's appropriate that the director calls this the final chapter in a trilogy about struggling with one's identity -- he shows none of his own while mishandling someone else's.

| Mar 3, 2005

Poignant and well acted, though not very memorable.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 17, 2005

It's ultimately more simplistic and contrived than provocative.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 4, 2005

While this dreamily photographed piece contains fine performances by all, it loses its way as it lingers too long in the past and moves too slowly in the present.

| Feb 4, 2005

At heart a reverie, a meditation on the past and its treacheries, the ways in which people become flawed, and the eternal though often elusive possibility of forgiveness and redemption.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 3, 2005

McKellen and Unger do a wonderful trudging through the dirt (and, finally, cheese), Emile never quite gets off the ground.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 27, 2004

An honest and intelligent look into real relationships, impressively original in its execution and breathtakingly remarkable in its delivery.

Full Review | Original Score: 83/100 | Jul 20, 2004

The films of Carl Bessai are remarkably similar on two fronts: (1) They all have a single name for a title -- first Johnny, then Lola, now Emile; and (2) They just aren't getting much better.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 4, 2004

Technical shortcomings aside this is a good story well told, elevated by McKellen on top form.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 22, 2004

Reminds us that Sir Ian McKellen is used to playing more complex characters than Gandalf or Magneto.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 11, 2004

A small but excellent cast supports McKellen in what is a beautiful and intelligent film.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 30, 2004

Beautifully filmed and edited by Bessai to take us into the mind of a man who has made too many life-changing decisions.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 16, 2004

McKellen, as one might expect, is brilliant in the role of a 60-something man re-inhabiting his earlier life on a farm in Saskatchewan and visiting the imagined life of his brother and his niece during the period when he has been living in England.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 11, 2004

Emile may not be flashy, it may even be hard slogging emotionally, but it has value.

| Feb 11, 2004