| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

| Original Score: A- | Sep 7, 2011

While this seems like familiar territory, in the hands of director Jan Hrebejk and his longtime screenwriting partner, Petr Jarchovsk, it's an engrossing, layered story of the ill-fitting choices and compromises everyone makes.

| Apr 3, 2009

Beauty in Trouble uses another kind of catastrophe to reveal the true nature of its central characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 12, 2009

Impressive for its mastery, intelligence, and ambition in juggling intricate plot strands and memorable characters.

| Dec 9, 2008

This is the kind of film that achieves one simple but difficult thing: It pleases you.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 9, 2008

Comedy and chemistry make for an intoxicating mix in this acerbic, knowing character study from Czech director Jan Hrebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchovsky.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 18, 2008

Deeply affecting and darkly amusing.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 1, 2008

This being a Czech film, drama, comedy, history, and social commentary are served up in equal proportion.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2008

Beauty in Trouble offers a meditation on the legacies of communism and the lure of capitalism, but also on the human need for love, connection and family.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 17, 2008

A vivid, nuanced and sweetly forgiving study in moral ambiguity.

| Jun 19, 2008

Beauty in Trouble uses the changing moods of water as both metaphor and frame for the infinite adaptability of human emotions.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 13, 2008

Will Marcela (wonderful Ana Geislerova) opt for brains or brawn? The answer might surprise you.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 13, 2008

Unfortunately, Hrebejk settles for unsatisfying allusions to the Czech experience that never break through the thick haze of melodrama to make his case with any conviction.

Full Review | Jun 11, 2008

So, can anyone tell me what the Czech word for magnolia is?

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 8, 2008

[A] masterful multicharacter drama.

| Jul 7, 2006

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 2, 2006

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 2, 2006

| Original Score: A- | Jul 2, 2006