Kazan's film has a sharp eye for social detail, but avoids giving occulted status to the peeling paper, damp walls and austere kitchen table.
Comment
05/24/03
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
100
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:14
Fresh:14
Rotten:0
Average Rating:7.6/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 8 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: The story centers on young Francis Nolan, whose father's sudden death leaves the family to somehow survive in a harsh, desperate time. Like the tree in the back of their house, uncared for and... [More]
Starring: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan
Director: Elia Kazan
Reviews for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Top CriticKazan's first film, a sentimental family melodrama, is well acted (James Dunn won a Supporting Oscar), but it doesn't begin to suggest the powerful director he would become in the 1950s.
04/08/09
Rarely has the dream factory lavished such skill on such destitution and such insistence that people are not really that changeable in nature.
02/15/09
A sober and reasonably truthful story of life among the lowly.
12/05/08
Top CriticIt's a grim tearjerker told with great love and tenderness.
12/17/07
Where Tree is frequently slow, it is offset by the story's significance and pointed up notably by the direction of Elia Kazan.
11/01/07
Top CriticThis episodic, charmingly sentimental movie is a trifle lengthy but never tedious.
12/04/06
Top CriticNo review available.
10/09/05
No review available.
12/03/03
No review available.
08/22/03
Elia Kazan has directed this picture, his first, with an easy naturalness that has brought out all the tone of real experience in a vastly affecting film.
05/20/03
Top CriticNo review available.
07/30/02
No review available.
07/25/02
This family has a great deal of love but a lot of difficulty showing it.
04/13/02
1 - 14 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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