With its convoluted pretentiousness, heavy use of metaphors and obscure references to art, fails to maintain interest.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Baltimore Sun by Chris Kaltenbach
Greenaway's film is about making people's jaws drop.
The deeply ridiculous 8 1/2 Women could have been made only by a cranky dotard.
San Francisco Examiner by G. Allen Johnson
It's downright boring.
Dallas Observer by Gregory Weinkauf
It may be his (Greenaway's) breeziest and kindest-hearted effort to date.
This anti-narrative screwball comedy, a sort of police-drama re-enactment of Fellini's themes in "8 1/2," keeps most of the jokes off-screen.
New York Post by Jonathan Foreman
More prettily photographed pretentious rubbish from the ridiculous Peter Greenaway.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
A nod to Fellini--and that "half" turns out to be a typically dark Greenaway twist. Yet this film, one of Greenaway's most amusing and accessible, actually arrives at moments of tenderness, even love, fleeting though they may be.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Though his film is breathtakingly art-directed, Greenaway wallows in epater le bourgeois nastiness -- his inner naughty child could use a good paddling.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Its message is quite simple and all too familiar: when it comes to sex, all men are little boys.