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Fugitive Pieces

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Fugitive Pieces (2008)

69%
80%
88%
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69 %
Reviews Counted: 39 Fresh: 27  Rotten:12 Average Rating: 6.6/10
 
Consensus: Though the retelling is a bit too subtle, the moving story and solid performances lift Fugitive Pieces beyond standard holocaust tales.
 

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins

Synopsis: Adapted from Anne Michael's acclaimed prose-poem novel, FUGITIVE PIECES is a harrowing and haunting tale of Holocaust survival and personal awakening. The film opens in Poland, as young Jakob Berr (Robbie Kay) is hidden away just before German soldiers storm into his Jewish family's home.... Adapted from Anne Michael's acclaimed prose-poem novel, FUGITIVE PIECES is a harrowing and haunting tale of Holocaust survival and personal awakening. The film opens in Poland, as young Jakob Berr (Robbie Kay) is hidden away just before German soldiers storm into his Jewish family's home. After watching his parents murdered and his sister dragged away to an uncertain fate, Jakob flees and hides in the woods. He is discovered by a kindly Greek archaeologist, Athos (Rade Sherbedgia), who smuggles the sickly Jakob back to his own island home and hides him for the rest of the war. Years later, having moved to Canada, the grownup Jakob (Stephen Dillane) has become a writer struggling to articulate his childhood horrors, haunted by the mystery of his sister's fate. But after his troubled emotions lead to the breakup of his marriage to the free-spirited Alex (Rosamund Pike), Jakob must exorcise the ghosts of his past if he is to close a traumatic chapter of his life and find beauty in the present. Director Jeremy Podeswa (THE FIVE SENSES) ably shifts between the different stages of Jakob's life, showing how grief can continue to influence one's actions--or inaction--in the years that follow a tragedy. Handsomely shot and thoughtfully acted, FUGITIVE PIECES is a touching testimony to the power of remembrance and redemption. [More]

Genre: Dramas

Starring: Stephen Dillane, Rade Sherbedgia, Rosamund Pike, Ayelet Zurer, Robbie Kay

Director: Jeremy Podeswa
Screenwriter: Jeremy Podeswa
Producer: Robert Lantos

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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3/4

Fugitive Pieces delivers its own evocative poetry.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/11/08
Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post
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N/A

The great Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija gives Fugitive Pieces its heart.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/11/08
Jonathan F. Richards
Film.com
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85/100

... defaults to a kind of poetic conventionality that is unlikely to completely satisfy fans of either The Pianist or The Love Letter.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/11/08
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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3/4

Fugitive Pieces is an often lovely work, haunting its viewer long afterward with its quiet observations on what remains with us.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/27/08
Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times
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B+

Ultimately, Podeswa fashions this collection of familiar characters and overworked themes into something unique: a wistful parable about the destructive hold the past has on all of our lives and the absolute necessity of breaking it.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/26/08
William Arnold
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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N/A

Tasteful, unremarkable art-house fare, rescued from complete irrelevance by Stephen Dillane's bottled-up performance as a writer scarred by the Holocaust.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/13/08
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
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3.5/4

If Fugitive Pieces has a message, it is that life can heal us, if we allow it.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/13/08
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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3/4

Fugitive Pieces is often quiet, lyrical, reflective and underplayed. It doesn't minimize Holocaust suffering--far from it--but it strives, often successfully, to unearth the innate good in people Anne Frank alluded to so eloquently.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/13/08
Sid Smith
Chicago Tribune
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N/A

Everyone in the movie...is fabulous, and Podeswa has an ability to distill history into a few powerful images.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/16/08
Stephen Hunter
Washington Post
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2.5/4

The cast is uniformly attractive and earnest. But the romanticized image of the tortured artist is the stuff of stereotype unless it's leavened with humor, or limned in art. In Fugitive Pieces, neither element appears in sufficient quantity.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/15/08
Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer
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2.5/4

The film can barely breathe, much less move.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/15/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
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N/A

The film occasionally gets weighed down by its ponderousness, but despite a few lags, it's always involving.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/14/08
Tricia Olszewski
Movie Babe
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3/4

Sensitively adapted from the achingly sad, luminous novel by Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces is a story of unspeakable loss and how it eats at the souls of survivors.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/09/08
Connie Ogle
Miami Herald
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2.5/4

Feels less like a redemptive survivor's story and more like a commercial for some terrific Mediterranean resort.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/09/08
Wesley Morris
Boston Globe
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N/A

...a drama about good people struggling to make the right choices in life.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/09/08
Daniel M. Kimmel
The Jewish Advocate
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3.5/5

Bit by fragmented bit, it all adds up to a one-note portrait of its protagonist. Granted, that one note is a powerful one.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/08/08
Richard Nilsen
Arizona Republic
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N/A

This lyrical drama about memory and survivor's guilt taps a deep reservoir of emotions.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/02/08
Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter
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N/A

A generally dull and unmemorable adaptation of Anne Michaels' extraordinary prose-poetry novel.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/02/08
Robert Koehler
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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2.5/4

Well acted but dramatically unyielding.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/02/08
Peter Howell
Toronto Star
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2/4

It’s a character study in which the lead participant is the least interesting person in the movie. There’s something inherently frustrating and unsatisfying about that.

Full Review | comment Comment
05/02/08
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
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(2008 USA release)-Jeremy Podeswa's FUGITIVE PIECES opens on Friday, May 2nd!!!
by: ReelReviewer.com 5/7
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• Fugitive Pieces at Rotten Tomatoes
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• Fugitive Pieces at AskMen
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