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2008 Fall Season
Top Chef Season Five
75
Summer Heights High
67
Whale Wars
71
Law & Order Season 19
74
Brotherhood Season Three
75
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Mrs. Harris
Starring Annette Bening, Ben Kingsley, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Burstyn, Frances Fisher, Michael Gross, Cloris Leachman, and Mary McDonnell Writer-director Phyllis Nagy's made-for-HBO biopic chronicles the tragic relationship between divorced school headmistress Jean Harris and "Scarsdale Diet" creator Dr. Herman "Hy" Tarnower, which ended with the latter's murder in 1980.
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more... 100
People Weekly Tom Gliatto
The tone here can be offputtingly strange: brittle, flinty yet over the top. [20 Feb 2006, p.37]
100
Chicago Sun-Times Doug Elfman
Scene by scene, "Mrs. Harris" overcomes the rote nature of true crime stories.
 88
New York Daily News David Hinckley
Their dance of love and rejection, of giddiness and bitterness, is a warped waltz, and Kingsley and Bening clearly relish every step.
80
LA Weekly Robert Abele
This kind of brittlely accurate performance is something to watch in the hands of an actress like Bening, who seems incapable --even during the film’s most blackly humorous moments -- of a false, Fatal Attraction–like note.
80
Village Voice Joy Press
Annette Bening is stunning in this smart biopic.
80
Newsday Diane Werts
"Mrs. Harris" unfolds with a basic playfulness that keeps the mood light even as the story becomes dark indeed.
80
New York Magazine John Leonard
Entertaining... What [Nagy] has done is tailor this tabloid material to several different narrative tastes, which alternate as the movie shifts from love affair to temper tantrum to gunfire to murder trial and back again.
75
Entertainment Weekly Alynda Wheat
Jean appears to have liked humiliation... Such masochism is hard to watch, even with a stellar cast. [24 Feb 2006, p.58]
75
San Jose Mercury News Charlie McCollum
Bening provides the spark that drives "Mrs. Harris," keeping its darkly funny irony from degenerating into campy humor.
75
Detroit Free Press Mike Duffy
Simultaneously appealing and rather sadly appalling, "Mrs. Harris" gets at the messy truth of it all in a distinctively mischievous manner.
70
Kansas City Star Aaron Barnhart
The constant toing-and-froing of “Mrs. Harris” might have gotten tiresome, as an earlier HBO effort at revisionist biography, “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers,” did. Bening, though, is somehow able to conjure up a completely new mood for each time and setting.
70
Los Angeles Times Daryl H. Miller
It's a psychologically rich study of love's mutability, presented in a boldly stylized, darkly comic manner.
70
Chicago Tribune
Addicting, like watching a really grimy train wreck, this sorry, sordid tale of Harris' obsessive love and descent into prescription pill addiction is icy, ironic and typically HBO in the frankness of its sex talk.
70
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
"Mrs. Harris" is interesting but not intimate. It's cold, aloof and distant, much like the relationship it depicts between the principal characters.
63
New York Post Linda Stasi
Since I myself am a sucker for a true-crime cheesefest, I was loving this movie until I was rudely reminded by my friend Denise that, "This is neither good sleaze nor serious true crime! It's half a satire, and half a true crime movie!"
60
The New York Times Alessandra Stanley
In this version, Mrs. Harris, at times appealing, at other times brittle and censorious, is hard to fathom.
60
Washington Post Tom Shales
While the film could not be called a rollicking success, it seldom if ever pauses long enough to be ordinary, complacent or conventionally minded.
50
USA Today Robert Bianco
The costumes are gorgeous, the sets are time-period gems, and the actors are among the best.... But the story to which they've been appended is hollow. It's like an exquisitely wrapped empty box.
50
TV Guide Matt Roush
The movie's fun to watch, but also rather hollow, reminding me of last season's HBO movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Both are well acted but with such obvious stories to tell they soon grow tiresome.
40
Wall Street Journal Dorothy Rabinowitz
Nagy's showy ventures in stylization, the raucous jokiness substituted for story are heavy encumbrances for this tale.
30
Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert
Pointless and inert.
Jack K gave it a10: Lori gave it a10: marcela f gave it a9: Sterling M gave it a10: Ted M gave it a1: Kathleen S gave it a10: Jack C gave it a10: |
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