Critic Reviews

• Guy Lodge, Time Out

  Has taken almost two years to reach the UK; you'd be forgiven for thinking it was far longer, given its sub-Joseph Losey pretensions and doily-like styling.

• Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle

  Sometimes a feast of acting isn't enough.

• David Denby, New Yorker

  A brilliantly acted semi-dud.

• Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

  Too often the film's moods switch unsuccessfully between the abruptly serious and the broadly bizarre.

• Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

  Rush and Davis are two of the best actors in the business, and their brittle gamesmanship and rue holds the screen. But the film is disappointingly lackluster -- a mild squall instead of a storm.

• Lou Lumenick, New York Post

  It all feels like a whittled-down miniseries.

• Donald Clarke, Irish Times

  The film circles (slowly, like an overfed vulture) around the protracted death of a savage matriarch played, with no concessions to subtlety, by Charlotte Rampling.

• Philip French, Observer [UK]

  It's a chilly, cruel film about characters that are difficult to like or warm to, and it obviously means a great deal to a country that for so long rejected its greatest writer.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  It is funny and sad in patches, but never comes completely alive, perhaps because there isn't a single character with whom you can feel fully in sympathy.

• Stefan Pape, HeyUGuys

  Although the story holds much premise, The Eye of the Storm survives mostly off the performances of the leading cast members.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  The movie proceeds at a measured and reverent pace, a little unfocused, but with intelligent performances from three heavyweight acting talents.

• Elliott Noble, Sky Movies

  [A] handsome, if patchy, rendering of Patrick White's story of manipulation and dysfunction among the rich and selfish.

• David Jenkins, Little White Lies

  Some very game performances are let down by weak source material.

• David Parkinson, Empire Magazine

  Director Fred Schepisi strives effectively to mine the gold in Patrick White's social study. Top notch performances from the stellar cast help him nail the book's citric tone.

• Eddie Harrison, The List

  Serious-minded, literate dramas are few and far between outside Oscar season, and until a tired third act, The Eye of the Storm just about manages to live up to its illustrious pedigree.

• Neil Smith, Total Film

  Had Merchant Ivory ever gone Down Under, they'd probably have fashioned something in the vein of this mannered chamber piece.

• Kirk Honeycutt, honeycuttshollywood.com

  The actors and Fred Schepisi's direction are impeccable but so what? A brilliantly designed death watch is still a death watch.

Read all 17 critic reviews