Midway through, Rapp loses momentum, failing to hone in on just what kind of movie he wants to make, and Winter Passing languishes in that no-man's land between tiny, meandering, indie drama and plotted, pointed family melodrama.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 11, 2006

This flawed drama about a self-destructive young actress and her reclusive novelist father has its rewards, mainly in some good performances.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 10, 2006

There are intriguing actors and ideas here, but only occasionally do they combine with convincing force.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 10, 2006

This is the kind of movie routinely dismissed as too slow and quiet by those who don't know it is more exciting to listen than to hear.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2006

It's a disturbing movie, particularly the first half, and one not easily digested.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 9, 2006

Winter Passing is one dull, extended encounter session among hackneyed characters.

| Mar 9, 2006

A kind of lugubrious shtick takes over.

| Original Score: C+ | Feb 22, 2006

The way it's done is so authentic, and you have such good performances from everybody involved here, and some very true writing.

Full Review | Feb 21, 2006

Rapp plays out the relationships between these superficially drawn characters in an entirely pat manner, yet Deschanel manages to make Winter Passing almost matter. That's real talent.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 17, 2006

Underneath the contemplative tone and poetic visuals lies a disappointingly familiar coming-of-age story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 17, 2006

A portrait of grieving artists, trying to get back to the quotidian business of suffering.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 17, 2006

Sometimes a single scene sets such a strong tone that the rest of the film has a hard time breaking it.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Feb 16, 2006

Adam Rapp's story of an embittered child's homecoming and confrontation with a parent throws off dramatic sparks, but they never flare into a blaze.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 16, 2006

[Rapp] brings out in Deschanel a sense of yearning, an avidity, that hits home. It's her most emotionally layered performance.

| Original Score: B+ | Feb 16, 2006

The writer-director's affection for those characters is apparent, but with the exception of a few unpredictable moments from Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell, Winter Passing finds only cliche as it reaches for profundity.

Full Review | Feb 16, 2006

Adam Rapp, who wrote and directed this ordeal, overloads a synthetic storyline with more complex and hard-won epiphanies than such a fragile little movie can support.

Full Review | Feb 15, 2006

The film is so grindingly predictable that I was writing out a full plot synopsis in my notebook before it was half over, though the thick grains of Terry Stacey's photography and Deschanel's understated performance add a little kick.

| Feb 14, 2006

The film delivers nothing more than a familiar Sundance-style brand of stagy, small-scale drama.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 7, 2006

Family drama appears content to present the situation without going for anything remotely close to the emotional jugular.

Full Review | Sep 22, 2005