Director Herbert Ross' attempts to tart up the original are fussy and clumsy by turns.

| May 3, 2024

MacLaine is wonderful, and she ought to be. She has all the best lines, and is the freest spirit in the Louisiana community.

| May 3, 2024

For all of its faults, Magnolias is in good company.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 3, 2024

In general, the cast seems to bring out the best in the material.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 3, 2024

Moving enough to make you cry, much the same as Terms of Endearment did.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 3, 2024

While the script tends to grantee the tears, the cast ensures that some of the laughter will show through.

| May 3, 2024

A very funny, yet very moving film.

| Original Score: 8/10 | May 2, 2024

Instead of a soul-sister ensemble, what we get is a screenful of ego-pumped actresses clonking each other for the spotlight.

| May 1, 2024

This is a mildly diverting exercise, played out with a heavily theatrical sense of balance, which has little to say about the human condition but says it in an engaging manner.

| May 1, 2024

It's worth the price of a ticket to see the poised Olympia Dukakis as the elegant, amused widow of the mayor.

| May 1, 2024

The film opens out the play a little and has the professional energy you might expect, but it fails to be anything more than a sentimental journey, substituting sympathy for depth and homespun philosophy for real thought.

| May 1, 2024

Like its very title, the movie has an irresistible way of mingling resiliency with vulnerability.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Apr 30, 2024

Harling's and Ross' pop blend of comedy and tragedy captures the real kidding and bonding, needling and support of women's friendships because both men enjoy exaggerating.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 30, 2024

"Make-'em laugh, make-'em cry, make-'em wait," said Charles Dickens, and "Steel Magnolias" does all three.

| Apr 30, 2024

The moments that don't work -- and there are many -- are precisely those scenes that are the most theatrical and probably will win awards.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 30, 2024

The screen is filled with tics, mannerisms and desperately clutched props -- trademarks substituted for personalities.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 30, 2024

What the movie version of Steel Magnolias lacks in sweetness, intimacy and wistfulness; it more than makes up for in firepower.

| Apr 30, 2024

A tremendously accommodating vehicle for six very different actresses.

| Apr 30, 2024

It is that rare achievement: a comedy and tear-jerker that works.

| Apr 30, 2024

What works so well in Steel Magnolias is the wonderful comic ride through the years of these women's lives.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 30, 2024