There's nothing flashy about Moncrieff's filmmaking, and there doesn't need to be: from the start, she gets the emotional details right, and the viewer feels intimately engaged with the young protagonist. It's a powerful, fresh, honest debut.

| Mar 7, 2018

Worth watching for the coming-out party of Agnes Bruckner, a relative newcomer who shows her mettle with an extraordinary performance in this very ordinary tear-jerker.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 12, 2003

An impressive first effort from Ms. Moncrieff, but the eternal Aristotelian in me finds it depressing to watch characters always walking around in moral quicksand.

| Jun 11, 2003

It's an incredibly strong debut reinforced by astonishingly good performances by all the principals.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 8, 2003

The film is strengthened by the two leading performances.

Full Review | May 28, 2003

We've seen this unhappy scenario played out many times before, but seldom with a better eye for detail.

Full Review | May 23, 2003

Certainly no feel-good flick of the summer. But it's always tough and honest.

| May 23, 2003

It's rare that a movie makes a viewer experience the psychodynamics of an encounter so profoundly -- usually theater is a better medium for that -- but Moncrieff has exceptional skills.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 23, 2003

The story is so well-acted and honestly written that after a while it stops bothering us that we know where it's going.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 23, 2003

It's that central dance between teacher and student that makes the movie both hard to watch and worth your attention -- a subtle waltz of power in which it's difficult to tell who's leading until too late.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 23, 2003

It's a writer-director's important debut and a giant leap to leading roles for a brave actress.

| Original Score: B- | May 22, 2003

As bitterness piles upon disappointment piles upon loneliness, Blue Car stalls under the weight of its emotional baggage.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 22, 2003

I didn't like Blue Car, and the only thing I found appalling is how blatantly predicable and pseudo-daring the supposedly appalling stuff is.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | May 22, 2003

A coming-of-age tale acted with such honesty, and directed with such quiet understanding of its troubled characters, that its nearly unrelenting grimness takes on a poetic quality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 16, 2003

From the rain-streaked windshield to the unaffected line readings from a stellar cast, there is not a shot in Blue Car that doesn't ring true.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 16, 2003

Blue Car isn't an easy ride, but it's worth taking.

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 16, 2003

A valuable cautionary tale.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 16, 2003

A beautifully crafted and painfully sincere movie that makes most dramas about teenagers seem about as real and relevant as American Pie.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 16, 2003

Thanks to Bruckner and Strathairn, who's queasy beyond the call of duty, this is one indie that resonates well beyond the end credits.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 15, 2003

For the most part, Blue Car succeeds in fulfilling Meg's assignment to 'touch the hidden nerve.'

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 15, 2003