25
Takes its name from the king protea, the national flower of South Africa. The stunning, artichoke-like shrub may be fragrant, but the movie's pretty much a stinker.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
Proteus carries an air of forced-wit experimentation that never quite gets its anachronisms in order -- this 18th-century tale features a Jeep, a radio, and female court reporters with typewriters and bouffant hairdos.
30
The New York Times by Dave Kehr
Tricked up with an elaborate flashback structure, subtitled dialogue in three languages and as many gratuitous aesthetic touches as the traffic will bear, Proteus emerges as a heavy, pretentious and derivative film.
50
Proteus has enough erotic and exotic content to win back some of the arthouse viewers previously beguiled by Greyson's "Lilies." But pic lacks that gem's lush aesthetics and impassioned complexity, ending up a tad remote.
63
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
John Greyson and Jack Lewis' experimental drama, about two prisoners who have a dangerous affair, is a challenging, flawed look at a little-known slice of history.
50
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
Ultimately, the sex scenes seem of far more interest to the filmmakers than the narrative or characterizations, which are rendered in frustratingly vague and often deliberately confusing fashion.
70
This unusually rich film tackles not only the social structuring of criminality and sexuality but race as well, and explores the ways science has been used to justify the ruthless pursuit of market interests and, eventually, apartheid itself.
50
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Proteus is involving and affecting even if it is not completely coherent or fully realized.
38
This Canadian-South African labor of love has its heart in the right place, even if the leads seem to have been cast more for their hunky looks than their stiff acting.