40
While Fathers and Daughters has a strong cast (including a brief appearance by Jane Fonda), it largely saddles them with one-dimensional roles and too-obvious emotional cues.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
Time Out London by Dave Calhoun
The list of co-stars – Jane Fonda, Octavia Spencer, Aaron Paul – is so impressive that it’s hard to know what attracted everyone to such a soapy, cloying script.
60
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
Bringing good old-fashioned Mediterranean emotion to a screenplay that feels oh so familiar, this modern-day weepie unapologetically plays to the crowd rather than the critics.
12
The film's weird reformulation of the Electra complex is nothing short of a sexist fantasy of salvation.
30
In its shape and sheen, Fathers and Daughters seems dated even before Michael Bolton surfaces to cough up a gelatinous closing-credits ballad.
40
It’s tastefully shot and Crowe commits to the horrors of Jake’s illness (his seizures are upsetting) but the writing lacks depth, the character psychology is dime-store Freud and the performances are variable.
25
This turkey is too clumsy and boring to make much of a ripple in the summer landscape.
38
The sum of Fathers and Daughters is so much less than each of its individual parts. A misshapen attempt at maudlin (not unlike Muccino’s other Hollywood films), it enrages, here and there, but rarely touches or moves us.
20
The level of psychological nuance in Desch’s script, not to mention feminist enlightenment, makes EL James look like Virginia Woolf.
50
Screen International by Wendy Ide
Seyfried is impressive in the role, mercurial and fragile, but with a flinty coldness deep within.