64
Metascore
4 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleLos Angeles TimesRobert AbeleWhat’s attractive about revisiting The Europeans now is how it’s more indie-flavored, its pleasurable finery and delicate ironies — even the filmic stiltedness — befitting a novel whose lightness of tone James himself recognized when he subtitled it “A Sketch.”
- 70Film ThreatHunter LanierFilm ThreatHunter LanierThe Europeans expects you to meet it halfway. When you do, you’re rewarded with a story that’s rich with complicated emotions, despite its self-confident exterior. It’s like its characters in that way, and also in the way, it thinks highly of itself and presents itself accordingly. Modesty never did a movie good.
- 63Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe elegantly composed visuals, the stately progression of the scenes, the deliberate understatement of the dialogue, are all as "faithful" to James as a film can be. But that's exactly the film's problem: Ivory hasn't found a way to make his own film, and has ended up with a classroom version of James, a film with no juice or life of its own.
- 60The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyThe Europeans isn't simply pretty, it's so relentlessly pretty it becomes almost boring to watch.