| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 6, 2005

A sometimes audacious, occasionally downright brilliant, always watchable work that somehow just misses being wholly successful.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 1, 2005

While some of the low-key atmospherics are effective, and Thornton suffers with exquisite quietude, some important scenes unfortunately are clumsily staged.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 10, 2005

Chrystal unravels a bit toward the end as it becomes more fable-like, but the performances make it worthwhile.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 9, 2005

Respectable piece of work is reasonably involving if not compelling.

Full Review | May 27, 2005

It's meandering and uneven, but much of it is powerfully effective and affecting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 27, 2005

Even those impatient viewers who feel like they're watching paint dry will admit that the colors are beautiful.

| Original Score: B | Apr 23, 2005

No slam against the O Brother ,Where Art Thou? soundtrack but Chrystal could give it a run for its money.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 23, 2005

Looks and feels authentic in a way only a Southern director is likely to achieve.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

An affecting melodrama that's deep-fried in Southern heritage right down to its ribs.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 21, 2005

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 17, 2005

Moves at a virtually glacial pace, dramatizing its story less than entombing it...lacks the radiance it obviously aspires to.

| Original Score: C | Apr 16, 2005

This would have been a better movie if it was just the Chrystal and Joe story... without some of the side bar events that don't advance the story.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 15, 2005

Triple threat writer/actor/director Ray McKinnon renders a strange tale set in the beauty of the Ozarks.

Full Review | Apr 13, 2005

... a masterful and assured movie about the ways broken people try to mend connections and carry on.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Apr 8, 2005

An oddly beautiful film.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Apr 7, 2005

A grand story of redemption, laced with barbecued wit and slopped with intrigue.

Full Review | Mar 16, 2004

A harrowing and indelible evocation of loss and the fragility of life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 16, 2004

A two-hour film that contains a story that could have been smoothly detailed in thirty minutes.

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

If the as well-performed, better directed star-filled Levity is worth only 50 screens in its widest release, you'd have to think that Chrystal is headed for similar territory.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 3, 2004