Share

Watch It

On DVD: Now | On Blu-ray: TBD
Watch it on iTunes Buy on Amazon

The White Countess Review

Movies.com Critics

4.5

Dave White Profile

… aimed directly at old people … Read full review

Other Critics provided by Metacritic.com

Critics scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 3.0
    60

    out of 100

    Metascore®
    Mixed or average reviews
    based on a weighted average of all
    critic review scores.

  • 50

    out of 100

    Variety Justin Chang

    This final production from the team of James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant is itself adrift in more ways than one, with a literate but meandering script by "The Remains of the Day" novelist Kazuo Ishiguro that withholds emotional payoffs to an almost perverse degree.

    Read Full Review

  • 60

    out of 100

    The New York Times Stephen Holden

    With its tentative pace, fussy, pieced-together structure and stuffy emotional climate, The White Countess never develops any narrative stamina.

    Read Full Review

  • 60

    out of 100

    Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

    The White Countess takes place in a fascinating time and place, rife with conflict and turmoil. But to watch Fiennes float (and Richardson trudge) through it all, absorbed in themselves and their own private misery, is to wish they'd started falling earlier, if only to knock some sense into them.

    Read Full Review

  • 70

    out of 100

    The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

    The director has staged the elaborate production in his usual stately but impressive manner, and the production values boast the usual Merchant/Ivory stamp of quality.

    Read Full Review

  • 75

    out of 100

    USA Today Claudia Puig

    The film takes a long time to unfold, and some scenes feel inert. But ultimately, the conclusion is moving and satisfying.

    Read Full Review

  • 75

    out of 100

    Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

    Fiennes and Richardson make this film work with the quiet strangeness of their performances; if they insist on their eccentricities, it's because they've paid them off and own them outright.

    Read Full Review

  • 83

    out of 100

    Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

    I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that this oasis of romance amid the turmoil of Shanghai represents the way that Merchant and Ivory, for 40 years, saw themselves: as a sanctuary of calming, life-size taste in a movie culture grown coarse. It was often far from perfect, but I'll miss that sanctuary.

    Read Full Review

  • 88

    out of 100

    Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

    It's a very classy, finely made film, and, as one watches it -- particularly those last sweeping scenes of political turbulence and escape -- one feels both pain at their (Merchant-Ivory) parting and grateful for what, together, they achieved.

    Read Full Review

  • See all The White Countess reviews at Metacritic.com

View MoreView Less
Advertisement