Amazing Grace 2006

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A good -- and important -- story, not always well told. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The rhythms [director Michael Apted and editor Rick Shaine] establish are jumpy and unsteady, afraid of allowing a scene to breathe and flow naturally. If the script were more alive, these matters of visual technique would matter less. But not much less. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Michael Apted's Amazing Grace is a beautifully chiseled blunt instrument. No, it's not subtle, but how subtle was slavery? Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Screenwriter Steven Knight gracefully articulates the many domestic and international forces at work. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Amazing Grace is a case of good works done well...[an] admirable historical drama. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A detailed, affecting biography of one of the great souls who moved humanity forward. Read more

Phil Kloer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: If you seek a movie that is uplifting, enlightening and ennobling, then Grace is for you. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: Apted's unexpected crowd-pleaser is inspirational, but also surprisingly entertaining. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's a doughty movie, stuck halfway between Masterpiece Theatre and Classics Illustrated. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Director Michael Apted and his team understand the challenges of this kind of story and have met them with intelligence and energy. [He] has managed to be true to the outsized emotions of the story without giving way to sentimentality. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Director Michael Apted tells the story with dry devotion to parliamentary procedurals and a worshipful approach to Wilberforce. But [actor] Gruffudd lacks the intensity and charisma to pull it off. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: [Director Michael Apted] has an unfortunate penchant for bland stateliness, and never more so than in Amazing Grace. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: I'm sure [director] Apted meant well, but Amazing Grace comes across as a surprisingly graceless biopic narrowed down to one white man's uncomfortable burden. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Amazing Grace is the stuff of great lessons and inspiration and hope, and if it's all delivered with a bit too much moral push, well, moral push apparently was what William Wilberforce was all about. There's another word for such dweebs: Heroes. Read more

Gregory Kirschling, Entertainment Weekly: It leaves the blood unstirred. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Director Michael Apted has turned out a movie that might be best described as faithful, both in its attention to accuracy and in its acknowledgement of the role faith played in righting one of the great social wrongs. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Steven Knight's ponderous script is front-loaded with expository deep background and stuffed into an awkward structure that lumbers back and forth between Wilberforce the early idealist and Wilberforce the broken man. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: That rare bird: a tear-jerker about the House of Commons and the antislavery movement in England. Michael Apted's idolatrous portrait of abolitionist William Wilberforce is wall-to-wall with intriguing characters and deeply felt performances. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Amazing Grace isn't quite an accurate title for this entertaining history lesson, but no one will ever write a song titled 'Amazing 20-Year Period of Parliamentary Maneuvering to End Britain's Role in the Slave Trade.' Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Michael Apted's Amazing Grace, from a screenplay by Steven Knight, turns out to be blessed with inspirational nobility and comic eccentricity to bring it to emotional fruition. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Amazing Grace arrives Hollywood-slick, a polished British period piece. It manipulates, but then again, so does the song that gives it its title. Movies, like hymns and history, should give us a good cry. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Apted is without a doubt one of the foremost documentarians working today. His Up Series represents a cinematic hallmark. His feature credits are less certain. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: [Apted's] picture, openhearted and enthusiastic, is partly an ode to Wilberforce and partly a love letter to the simple act of taking action. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: A stirring and still relevant political drama with a stellar cast. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Teresa Budasi, Chicago Sun-Times: The film is inspiring. When Wilberforce finally achieves victory, Lord Fox makes a speech, in which the opening words, sadly, still ring true today: 'When people think of great men, rarely do they think of peaceful men.' Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: So much to admire and so little to amaze. Read more

Susan Walker, Toronto Star: It is to be hoped that Amazing Grace is not the only, or the last, cinematic celebration of 200th anniversary of abolition, for there are more stories to tell, more imaginatively. Read more

Wally Hammond, Time Out: Grufudd is fine, passionate and single-minded, though overly Romantic, and quietly upstaged by the extraordinary Benedict Cumberbatch. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: It's neither amazing nor graceful. Read more

Eddie Cockrell, Variety: A workmanlike costumer that distills Blighty's long battle for the abolition of slavery and the personalities behind landmark antislavery legislation into a tidy story of conscience and perseverance. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: As written by Steven Knight, it seems so taken with Wilberforce's moral magnificence, it forgets to involve the audience, too. Read more