The Face of an Angel 2014

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Occasionally Winterbottom delivers a haunting, effective moment, giving a hint of a different, more compelling film. But then it's back to the self-righteous, self-indulgent, muddled metaphors. Read more

Jesse Hassenger, AV Club: Past Winterbottom films have turned "real life" into both comedy and tragedy. The Face Of An Angel turns it into a directionless skulk. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: [A] silly metamovie based on the Amanda Knox murder case. Read more

Deborah Young, Hollywood Reporter: There are many good things in the swiftly-moving narrative, filmed with a hand-held camera to give a documentary look. Read more

Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times: Like the floundering filmmaker at its center, "The Face of an Angel" never seems sure of what story it wants to tell. Read more

Stephen Whitty, New York Daily News: A picture that trades any suspense for endless scenes of a bored Bruhl staring at a screen, trying to find a story. Any story. Read more

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: Rambling, frustrating and wholly uninvolving, "The Face of an Angel" swarms with ideas that have no place to land. Read more

Tirdad Derakhshani, Philadelphia Inquirer: There's a great deal of intelligent material here. Winterbottom mounts a harsh attack on our fascination with killers and our tendency to forget the victim. Yet it's overlaid with so much navel-gazing, it's hard to take. Read more

Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail: Winterbottom is not out to thrill, but to lecture on the truth, which, he believes, can only be found in fiction. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: A lovely-looking yet muddled meditation on truth. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: The Face of an Angel ties itself up in some strange knots, but Michael Winterbottom conjures up a haunting gothic atmosphere in Siena. Read more

Simon Abrams, Village Voice: The Face of an Angel may not be like any other whodunit you've seen, but it's also only superficially smarter than the genre it defines itself against. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: The film does occasionally show a pulse when it tries to re-imagine the life of the victim - when it turns the tables on the mystery and tries to become a film about love and life, instead of doom and death. But it's too little, too late, and too lame. Read more