Though the strong performances from the brooding Dillane and the ever-good Serbedzija keep things from getting dull, the film does meander its way to a final act that simply peters out.
Comment
12/01/08
Fugitive Pieces (2008)
66
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:68
Fresh:45
Rotten:23
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Though the retelling is a bit too subtle, the moving story and solid performances lift Fugitive Pieces beyond standard holocaust tales.
Theatrical Release:29-05-2009
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... [More]
Starring: Stephen Dillane, Rade Sherbedgia, Rosamund Pike, Ayelet Zurer
Director: Jeremy Podeswa
Reviews for Fugitive Pieces
Writer-director Jeremy Podeswa, another Canadian, doesn't try to reproduce the talk on film, which is a wise move.
11/28/08
A sumptuous looking film that flits seamlessly between wartime Europe and '70s Canada.
11/21/08
Nuanced, scrupulous and powerful...
11/19/08
Slow moving, torpid and melancholy...it's tearjerker material, but without the tears.
11/19/08
A powerful and emotional journey of a man trying to come to terms with history.
11/19/08
The latter third of the movie sags, the victim of forced profundity and heavy stylization.
09/05/08
An almost strenuously dignified enterprise.
08/07/08
Fugitive Pieces delivers its own evocative poetry.
07/11/08
The great Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija gives Fugitive Pieces its heart.
07/11/08
... defaults to a kind of poetic conventionality that is unlikely to completely satisfy fans of either The Pianist or The Love Letter.
07/11/08
Fugitive Pieces is an often lovely work, haunting its viewer long afterward with its quiet observations on what remains with us.
06/27/08
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.
06/26/08
Tasteful, unremarkable art-house fare, rescued from complete irrelevance by Stephen Dillane's bottled-up performance as a writer scarred by the Holocaust.
06/13/08
If Fugitive Pieces has a message, it is that life can heal us, if we allow it.
06/13/08
Top CriticFugitive 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.
06/13/08
Everyone in the movie...is fabulous, and Podeswa has an ability to distill history into a few powerful images.
05/16/08
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.
05/15/08
Sliding from past to present without an overt purpose, Jakob's story has the grand and aimless sweep of a mini-series
05/15/08
The film can barely breathe, much less move.
05/15/08
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