Above average coming of age story.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 24, 2010

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 4, 2002

Audiences with an appreciation or even a tolerance of this genre will find this to be above average.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 4, 2001

Hicks ... coats the film in a bogus idyllic mist that substitutes cheap sentiment for blunt truth.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 3, 2001

The unblinking sympathy for kids struggling with evil and with the strange frequencies of prepubescent passion can, if your defenses are down, lay you out.

Full Review | Oct 2, 2001

Falls squarely into the near miss category.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 1, 2001

Hicks's film is magical, but its magic comes not from the inexplicable phenomena we most commonly associate with King, but from the charms of childhood.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2001

A precious respite from the postmodern era and all that it entails.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 28, 2001

Much of Hearts feels a little empty, a little unmotivated.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2001

Unabashedly sentimental, it's meant to touch our hearts in profound and important ways, but misses the mark by drawing too deeply from a pool of schmaltz.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 28, 2001

The story's enchantment feels forced and coy, its mysteries tricked-up and flimsy.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2001

A fussy piece of schmaltz that makes you long for Stand By Me, a vastly superior coming-of-age tale from King's pen.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2001

A sweet coming-of-age story set in the summer of 1960, akin in mood to [King's] Stand by Me.

| Sep 28, 2001

Put simply, the movie drags.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2001

All that early promise goes for naught when the picture approaches the final act, whereupon the various mysteries yield solutions that prove to be silly or sentimental or both.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 28, 2001

The performances are all first-rate, reinforcing the promise Hicks showed in the beautifully acted Shine.

| Sep 28, 2001

Going for transcendence, [Hicks] gives us lugubriousness.

| Sep 28, 2001

A poignant and often beautifully acted film.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2001

The acting is so good, you almost want to forgive the fact that they're not saying anything, and the film has no real point.

| Sep 28, 2001