Metacritic-Rezensionen

The insistent crosscutting suggests there is something powerful between the two stories, but apart from vague connections of jealousy, emotional tension and conversations that constantly dance around the real issues, they don't resonate across the years.

Though it never rises to its full potential as a film, still offers a great deal of insight into the female condition and the timeless danger of emotions repressed.

It's an intelligently made (and beautifully edited) picture that at the very least has a spark of life to it -- more than you can say for plenty of movies that flow through the Hollywood pipeline without a hitch.

Contains multiple ax murders, lesbianism, incest, a hanging, and a storm at sea -- yet, despite all of this seemingly enticing material, it's a bore.

Involves two mysteries -- one it gives away and the other featuring such badly drawn characters that its outcome hardly matters. But the picture looks great.

Shows glimmers of great drama, but jettisons too much essential cargo (character development, relationships, plot, common sense) in an effort to be lean and clean.

The two stories never come close to meshing the way the filmmaker intended. The result is a well-acted movie that simply doesn't gel.

Penn, in particular, is so subdued he's hardly there, while Hurley's seductive, hyper-articulate Adaline is actually ludicrous, sucking suggestively on ice cubes and reciting poetry like a phone-sex operator pretending to be a book-reading babe.

Means to be heavy in terms of psychology, provocation and the examination of emotion, but it sinks like a stone the minute it hits the surface.

Dreadful.