40
New Times (L.A.) by Andy Klein
Sad to say, the story is simply too slight to sustain the film.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Has a graceful simplicity that many will find hard to resist.
90
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
A beautifully textured, disarmingly simple movie about romantic devotion.
75
As luminous as the star presence at its center. It's at once a touching teacher movie and an even more touching love story.
40
Village Voice by Jessica Winter
The Road Home is foremost enthralled, however, with its lead actress -- wide-eyed and pigtailed, revered in close-up after stunned close-up.
90
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
The result is an enchanting story of love from an idealized past that endures in the mundane present.
70
The result is an interesting, if slightly unbalanced, hybrid: a social problem film with the warm heart of a deeply felt love story.
90
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
A gorgeous film with a vision strong enough to sustain heart-tugging, heightened by San Bao's romantic score, that verges on the sentimental.
75
It's a sweet tale, but the movie's real subject is Zhang, the camera's muse that the lens adores.
50
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
Predictable, not so much from his (Zhang Yimou) previous movies as from the work of the many sentimentalists who have already plowed this well-tilled turf.