Technical shortcomings aside this is a good story well told, elevated by McKellen on top form.
Comment
05/22/04
Emile (2004)
57
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:23
Fresh:13
Rotten:10
Average Rating:5.8/10
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Accomplished British actor Sir Ian McKellen stars in this Canadian picture as Emile, a 65 year-old man torn apart by memories of his troubled past. Consumed by guilt over abandoning his family when... [More]
Starring: Ian McKellen, Deborah Unger, Tygh Runyan
Reviews for Emile
Top CriticReminds us that Sir Ian McKellen is used to playing more complex characters than Gandalf or Magneto.
05/11/04
Top CriticAn honest and intelligent look into real relationships, impressively original in its execution and breathtakingly remarkable in its delivery.
07/20/04
Beautifully filmed and edited by Bessai to take us into the mind of a man who has made too many life-changing decisions.
03/16/04
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01/26/06
Top CriticClick to read the article
12/06/05
Top CriticMcKellen is superb as usual, and even if it's all a bit pat, the film quietly generates enough emotional momentum to be genuinely moving.
02/11/04
a film of tender hues, quiet intensity and elegiac melancholy that you may well find lingering in your own memory.
05/22/04
A small but excellent cast supports McKellen in what is a beautiful and intelligent film.
03/30/04
Emile may not be flashy, it may even be hard slogging emotionally, but it has value.
02/11/04
...the sort of prototypical movie that one expects from a made-in-Canada production...
02/11/04
Poignant and well acted, though not very memorable.
02/17/05
At heart a reverie, a meditation on the past and its treacheries, the ways in which people become flawed, and the eternal though often elusive possibility of forgiveness and redemption.
02/03/05
Top CriticMcKellen, as one might expect, is brilliant in the role of a 60-something man re-inhabiting his earlier life on a farm in Saskatchewan and visiting the imagined life of his brother and his niece during the period when he has been living in England.
02/11/04
While this dreamily photographed piece contains fine performances by all, it loses its way as it lingers too long in the past and moves too slowly in the present.
02/04/05
Top CriticIt's appropriate that the director calls this the final chapter in a trilogy about struggling with one's identity -- he shows none of his own while mishandling someone else's.
03/03/05
McKellen and Unger do a wonderful trudging through the dirt (and, finally, cheese), Emile never quite gets off the ground.
12/27/04
Confusing the profound with the pretentious, director Bessai packs the story with elliptical, ominous flashbacks that undercut all the advances he makes with the contemporary tale.
03/04/05
Sensitively played but ultimately undone by its unconventional approach.
03/04/05
The films of Carl Bessai are remarkably similar on two fronts: (1) They all have a single name for a title -- first Johnny, then Lola, now Emile; and (2) They just aren't getting much better.
06/04/04
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