This is a debut of amazing heft from Todd Field, gripping from gentle opening to dark conclusion, and acted with the kind of raw feeling that has you fighting to hold back tears.

| Nov 8, 2023

The directing debut of actor Todd Field (he played the pianist in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut) favors the performances and they are among the best in modern American cinema.

| Mar 4, 2023

The work lacks spontaneity and freshness. The spectator feels that he is being pulled by not-so invisible strings toward some inevitable denouement from the opening shots.

| Feb 16, 2021

Much of the film's unsettling nature is comprised of sheer silence which is often the most dangerous element...

| Apr 29, 2009

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 14, 2007

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

It's tempting to compare this film to Ordinary People, since both deal with the reaction of upper-middle class family to the accidental death of their son, though new movie is more immediate, emotional and ambiguous.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 25, 2006

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

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

The real story is in how the marriage is strengthened or harmed by the way each spouse responds to what's happening.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jan 15, 2005

As top-drawer as the acting is, I simply can't buy the laboriously plotted revenge ending, which seems to have crawled out of Perry Mason's attic.

| Sep 23, 2004

...an exceedingly deliberate yet mostly engrossing drama that benefits substantially from its raft of spellbinding performances...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 27, 2004

Few things are more sorrowful than a couple in a house of mourning with nothing but a wall of silence between them.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 25, 2004

| Original Score: 84/100 | Mar 16, 2004

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 5, 2003

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 10, 2003

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 5, 2003

...A whole greater than the sum of its parts.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 8, 2003

Minimalist acting is only interesting--and it can, of course, be intensely interesting--when it isn't providing a desperate cover for thematic inscrutability.

| Original Score: C+ | Jan 10, 2003

Occasionally straddles that delicate line between bordome and excess, yet never fails to maintain a certain lever of interest.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 8, 2002