50
A rather poetic costume drama jarringly interrupted by bits of modern banality. [02 Oct 1981, p.17]
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
The French Lieutenant's Woman is one of the most civilized and provocative movies of the year, but it falls just short of greatness. Perhaps Reisz and Pinter are too innately reticent to wring the last drop of emotional power from Fowles's story. [21 Sep 1981, p.96]
60
Washington Post by Gary Arnold
Sufficiently attractive and absorbing to sustain the fond delusion that Charles' pursuit of the mystifying Sarah might culminate in a revealing, conclusive confrontation. [02 Oct 1981, p.C1]
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
Two great beginnings disappoint in the end. If the novel is a dying form, film treatments are the poison. [21 Sep 1981]
60
Aesthetically beautiful and superbly acted, a sure sign of things to come from the leads.
60
The New Yorker by Pauline Kael
Meryl Streep gives an immaculate, technically accomplished performance as Sarah Woodruff, the romantic mystery woman of John Fowles' novel, but she isn't mysterious. We're not fascinated by Sarah; she's so distanced from us that all we can do is observe how meticulous Streep -- and everything else about the movie -- is.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The French Lieutenant’s Woman is a beautiful film to look at, and remarkably well-acted.
70
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
The film's beauty is dazzling. It stands with—or perhaps a little ahead of—Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Roman Polanski's Tess, but it also must be conceded, quickly and without too stern a reproach, that there is less to The French Lieutenant's Woman than meets the dazzled eye.