TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox

This charming tale of a quartet of Australian orphans who share a life-altering holiday in the 1960s should appeal to sentimental adults old enough to wax nostalgic over their own adolescences.

New York Post by Lou Lumenick

Tasteful and gorgeously photographed coming-of-age story.

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

The film's dramatic moments are small but exquisitely rendered so that you feel the emotions experienced so many years ago. The film lingers afterward in your mind like a favorite vacation that triggered moments of sheer intensity.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Crust

A refreshingly gentle treatment of familiar themes such as the inevitability of change, the dashing of youthful illusions and mutability of family. Enhanced by an exotic locale, the movie overcomes a well-trodden narrative path and unflinchingly brandishes its sentimentality as it stakes out its crowd-pleasing territory.

Chicago Reader by Joshua Katzman

Though familiar as an old shoe, this is straightforward and well told.

The A.V. Club by Nathan Rabin

For much of its duration, December is poignantly bittersweet, but the closing sugar rush washes its pleasing ambiguities away.

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

The filmmakers can't decide whether to trust the period innocence of the book (and play down their casting coup) or let the young man rip as a preteen-babe magnet... So December Boys splits the difference -- safely, dully.

Portland Oregonian by M. E. Russell

The film sort of loses its touch when it gets "dramatic" toward the end -- it's the type of flick where the sky gets overcast when everyone is sad -- but it's hard to argue with the movie's general good spirits.

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

A problematic memory play, shot through with honey-colored nostalgia, that backs nervously into darker matters.

New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman

The movie is mildly notorious for a (relatively chaste) scene in which Radcliffe's character loses his virginity. But if you're looking to watch this former child star grownup, track down his classic guest turn on TV's "Extras" instead.

Variety

Occasionally touching but rarely convincing coming-of-ager.

Empire

More Sunday afternoon filler than cinema sensation, it’s a perfectly pleasant drama, but you’ll struggle to remember it the next day.

The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis

A coming-of-age tale so treacly it doesn’t just tug your heartstrings, it attempts to glue them to your ribs.

Village Voice

If Daniel Radcliffe is hoping for an acting life after Harry Potter, he might want to be choosier than this cloying little Australian number.