Newman's handling of the outdoor scenes, especially those involving work, is -- like his own acting -- restrained but powerfully evocative.
Comment
01/26/06
Sometimes a Great Notion (1971)
100
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:11
Fresh:11
Rotten:0
Average Rating:7.2/10
Runtime: 1 hr 55 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Melodrama and action mix in this film about the personal and business struggles of a tightly knit family. The Stamper family runs an independent logging operation in the Pacific Northwest. While... [More]
Starring: Paul Newman, Henry Fonda, Lee Remick, Michael Sarrazin
Director: Paul Newman
Reviews for Sometimes a Great Notion
1 - 11 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top CriticNewman handles the emotional drama well and directs one outdoor scene with consummate brilliance.
05/24/03
Top CriticBased on Ken Kesey's book, Newman's second film as helmer is not effective or cohesive as the first (Rachel Rachel), but on location shoot in Oregon and good acting by Henry Fonda and the rest compensate for the uneasy fit between melodrama and action
07/29/09
Top CriticWhen the film cuts away from the family soap opera dramatics and shows the macho men at work wielding their chainsaws at the logging camp among the giant trees, it has a buzz.
01/18/09
Kesey's 600-plus-page novel would have made a fine six-hour mini-series, and it's a tribute to scenarist Gay that he managed to condense that much material into under two hours.
06/17/08
Top CriticThe result is rather good -- a sort of contemporary 'western' in the timber territory.
06/17/08
Top CriticTerrific family drama
04/20/07
No review available.
07/27/05
Surprisingly effective.
05/09/05
Top CriticNewman starts tunneling under the material, coming up with all sorts of things we didn't quite expect, and along the way he proves himself as a director of sympathy and a sort of lyrical restraint.
10/23/04
Top Critic1 - 11 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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