80
It succeeds emotionally in the cause of what seems to be its primary aim, to advance an attitudinal change in Australians not normally sympathetic to the aboriginal cause.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
Noyce wants us to feel the joy of the homecoming, but he's honest enough to show, in a coda that tells what happened to the girls after their break for home, how Rabbit Proof Fence finally must be more a tale of courage than of victory.
80
Thrilling, heart-wrenching tale of the real-life incredible journey.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
Not until the final shot does Noyce rise up to the potential of the history: There's a sudden shiver of recognition, that, my God, these people really lived this.
75
Noyce paces this amazing story well, and even if his young actors don't seem to have physically suffered as much as they would during such a long journey, he makes extremely good use of the bleak Outback scenery.
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Paula Nechak
Noyce's movie is a testament to endurance -- the camera caresses the landscape -- instilling us with a respect and reverence for it, its harsh ways and the attachment to it that Australia's indigenous people hold.
50
Achieves the impossible by taking one of the most compelling and harrowing stories imaginable and channeling it into one of the most ordinary movies of the year.
100
This is a chase movie (Simon Legree after three Little Evas) across parched outback terrain, captured with rapturous authenticity by cinematographer Christopher Doyle.
100
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
The result is a film that outrages and fills the viewer with poetry that's at once epic and intimate, scandalizing and life-affirming -- a real work of art.
80
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Although the movie, adapted from a book by Doris Pilkington Garimara, pushes emotional buttons and simplifies its true story to give it the clean narrative sweep of an extended folk ballad, it never goes dramatically overboard.