Disgrace 2008

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Demanding but ultimately rewarding... Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: After a compelling opening act and some shocking late-film developments, the film feels disengaged from the action at hand and the issues raised. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Disgrace is an ugly movie, at times torturous to watch. It probably needs to be. Read more

Gary Goldstein, Chicago Tribune: Unfortunately, though Malkovich remains a compelling and cerebral screen presence, he comes off as too innately detached and prickly to elicit much empathy (not that his character is asking for it, mind you). Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie eventually begins to wilt under the sober, plodding direction of Steve Jacobs, but the thoughtful screenplay gives Malkovich a complex, increasingly reflective character arc that he plays with great feeling. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Newcomer Jessica Haines is transparent and heartbreaking as the prof's unorthodox daughter, a victim of violence as the old ways crumble. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR: Steve Jacobs' elegantly disturbing film follows the exploits - or, more accurately, the exploitations - of 52-year-old professor David Lurie, a dissolute aesthete whose erudition does little to mask grotesque character flaws. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: I cannot tell a lie. I derive great satisfaction watching John Malkovich act. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I awaited the closing scenes of Disgrace with a special urgency, because the story had gripped me deeply but left me with no idea how it would end. None -- and I really cared. Read more

Nina Caplan, Time Out: It's an enormously complicated story with great potential for reductive schmaltz, but this is avoided thanks to Anna Maria Monticelli's sharp, sensitive screenplay and superb performances. Read more

Eddie Cockrell, Variety: A focused, absorbing meditation on race, class, history and sex. Read more

Ella Taylor, Village Voice: Though overwrought in its early scenes, the movie quickly settles into an intelligently faithful rendering of a calling to account, whose visceral power and political implications need no hyping. Read more