These moments give flavor, but fail to cohere into any particular taste.

| Jun 28, 2013

While visually scrumptious, the movie struggles to reach a greater profundity that it never quite obtains, but its childlike emulation of a grand tragedy is indelibly precious.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 14, 2013

Resurrects the spirit of Middle Eastern fables, albeit with a French twist.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 18, 2012

This dreamy, visually inventive Iranian drama functions on so many levels of reality and obsession that it almost ceases to entertain.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 4, 2012

A crushing disappointment by almost any standard, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parronaud's followup to the delightful Persepolis is a bad idea poorly realized.

| Original Score: C- | Sep 28, 2012

Fluctuating between the extraordinary and the dull, with sections of narrative explication and tangents, Chicken With Plums can be as frustrating as it is ambitious. It's more like Chicken With Plums -- and the Kitchen Sink.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 21, 2012

Chicken is a movie that begins with a crescendo and doesn't sustain its lyricism.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 20, 2012

"Predictability" is not in Satrapi and Paronnaud's vocabulary, and that is no small thing in this or any other movie era. But the whole those parts form never exceeds their sum.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 20, 2012

"Chicken With Plums" is a whimsical, sad, diverting and altogether delightful exploration of how cinema can benefit, not only from glancing back at its own past, but by staying open to parallel forms of presentation and play.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 14, 2012

This highly stylized, often beautiful rumination on life and art and the choices we make just sort of lies there, waiting to expire.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 14, 2012

For the most part it's a savory treat, much like the titular dish.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 13, 2012

It is the story of a man who, disappointed by life and love, decides to go to bed and die. And the movie does the same - only it dies a full hour before the finish.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 6, 2012

Chicken With Plums is not a thoroughly delectable concoction, but its exotic flavor is worth sampling.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 6, 2012

A film that's so clever, whimsical and creative in execution it'll take you a minute to realize it's about a husband and father of two who slowly commits suicide.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 4, 2012

It's not entirely satisfying, but there's plenty to savor in "Chicken With Plums."

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 30, 2012

The story lacks the historical sweep of Persepolis... this often plays like a bummed-out Amelie.

| Aug 23, 2012

It is all melancholy and loss, and delightfully comedic, with enough but not too much magic realism.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 23, 2012

The filmmakers rely on expressive eyes to carry a narrative style suitable for a silent movie.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 22, 2012

The many surreal flourishes, like the film's giant breasts and petals floating through a pink-tinged sky, are supposed to be absolved of cringing obviousness because they're, you know, poetic and exotic.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 17, 2012

This richly embroidered tale feels more anecdotal than epic, less like a fully imagined film than like a series of beguiling and beautiful pictures.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2012