40
Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis bookend a cast consisting of some of Oz's finest thesps, but Schepisi never gets a grip on a script with awkward literary tics.
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What are critics saying?
38
This adaptation of a prize-winning Australian novel is a stodgy slog save for some sporadic moments of blunt force supplied by Judy Davis and Charlotte Rampling.
60
New York Daily News by Joe Neumaier
Fred Schepisi's sly, stately comedy-drama that will please fans of BBC melodramas. But even on its own merits, its mild manner has sneaky stings.
60
Schepisi is deft with the social-strata stuff, introducing a large Gosford Park–like ensemble to tease out the central trio's dysfunction. So it's a shame that both book and film tilt away from the tart-tongued exchanges, giving increasing weight to a buried trauma that feels a little soggy.
50
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
The Eye of the Storm is an ambitious stab at what might be called the Great Australian Film. The results are off-and-on impressive, but the project's ambitions turn out to be greater than its ability to achieve them.
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
For all the talent involved, The Eye of the Storm is an incident-stuffed but lacklustre affair – a case of lots of sturm, but not enough drang – that reaches for a satiric sting and emotional depth it never achieves.
50
Good acting and some very good scenes don't quite add up to a good film.
60
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
Whether she's lying in bed, her gray hair spilling out around her head, or exalting in existence itself during one of several flashbacks, Elizabeth draws you in, which works for the story and simultaneously unbalances it.
80
Narrative unevenness notwithstanding, those hang-ups are given delicious life by a superb Rush, Davis, and Rampling (the latter often confined to a bed and encased in elderly makeup), who prove a regally dysfunctional trio par excellence.