Philadelphia Inquirer by Carrie Rickey

Melodramatic and strangely moving.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

It feels both big and little, concentrating as it does on the small movements in people's lives and the huge tides of history.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

This is an amazingly ambitious movie, not so much because of the time and space it covers (a lot), but because Potter trusts us to follow her heroine through one damn thing after another.

USA Today by Andy Seiler

A curious but intriguing movie that leaves you bemused and more than a little confused.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold

It's a strange and strangely unaffecting little drama -- but played very flat, with no particular emotional impact sought or achieved.

TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh

Ricci brings her trademark gravity to the wary Suzie, but Blanchett's role is the dazzler.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

Potter gets the period details right, but the film itself has long since flown off the rails, miring good intentions in rank soap opera.

Village Voice by J. Hoberman

The Man Who Cried is like a Yiddish generational tearjerker told from the perspective of the lost child rather than that of the bereaved parent.

Variety

Sally Potter, who leapt to critical attention with her 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf's "Orlando" -- makes a serious misstep with The Man Who Cried.

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

The driving drama of such a desperate situation is lost in the movie's casting silliness.