Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Paula Nechak

A film that takes you by surprise, refusing to relinquish its grim, fascinating hold. Better yet, it has crept up on us without much advance promotional fanfare. The less known about its twists, the better.

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

It's one of the year's signature film experiences.

Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum

David Mackenzie, who directed the remarkable Scottish drama "Young Adam" (2003), delivers another masterful, disturbing tale of illicit passion, erotic obsession, and sudden death set in the 1950s.

Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt

Patrick McGrath's novel provides a solid and suspenseful story, even if it loses much of its bite in Mackenzie's hands.

Miami Herald by Connie Ogle

The film, with its uniformly terrific cast, stern Gothic overtones and steady but measured pacing, is a crisp, old-fashioned delight, eschewing cheap tricks for repeated tiny pricks of unease that work up to a continuous gnawing dread.

Austin Chronicle by Marc Savlov

The delectably atmospheric Asylum remains gothic to its morally maggoty core.

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

A classy unintentional hoot.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips

Natasha Richardson glides through the film version of Patrick McGrath's novel Asylum in various states of fear, desire and undress, a swan among Yorkshire frumps.

New York Daily News by Jack Mathews

Asylum is as dark as Dracula's mood on a moonless night, and people suffering from depression should think twice before opening the coffin. This thing would put off Mary Poppins.

The A.V. Club by Keith Phipps

Mackenzie's film could almost use one or two lurid touches in place of its stately distance. Then again, a more stylized approach might have allowed less room for Richardson, whose unsparing performance makes other elements almost irrelevant.

L.A. Weekly by Ella Taylor

I hope to God that Patrick McGrath's novel Asylum, about a bunch of repressed Brits manipulating the stuffing out of one another in a 1950s psychiatric hospital, is better than the shallowly competent exercise in nastiness that British director David Mackenzie and screenwriter Patrick Marber have made of it.

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

Nothing wrecks the mood of a high-toned British period piece about erotic obsession quicker than an unintentional laugh. In which case, prepare for Asylum to be derailed by snorts in all the wrong places.

Village Voice by Jessica Winter

Mackenzie and Marber opt for an anonymous viewpoint of clinical detachment, which generates about the same psychodramatic tension as reading the "DSM-IV."

Variety by Eddie Cockrell

Overly plotted erotic drama.

Wall Street Journal

Ms. Richardson and Mr. Csokas are sunk mainly by the script (it's the handiwork of "Closer" playwright Patrick Marber and Chrysanthy Balis) and by their complete lack of chemistry. Still, their performances do them no credit.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas

It's too over-the-top, too lurid and at times simply too silly to represent any kind of valid commentary on the repressive '50s or the way in which institutions tend to destroy rather than cure. "Far From Heaven," which nailed '50s angst to perfection, Asylum could not be farther from.

The New York Times by Manohla Dargis

Dreary, claustrophobic drama.

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

A psychological thriller without bothering much with psychology. Come to think of it, the thrills are pretty much missing, as well.