A crowd-pleasing Italian melodrama... but the humour and the drama do not mix well and Boni and Mezzogiorno never really convince.
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10/24/05
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Don't Tell (2005)
29
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:6
Rotten:15
Average Rating:5.3/10
Theatrical Release:Mar 17, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: Based upon the celebrated novel La Bestia nel Cuore, DON'T TELL is the mesmerizing story of a woman's journey into her past and the aftermath of confronting personal demons long hidden beneath the... [More]
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Reviews for Don't Tell
Don't Tell, Italy's submission for the foreign-language Oscar, has strong performances, but the story takes too long to get off the ground.
03/24/06
Comencini is attempting to put on some kind of show about modern gender and sexuality issues, but that's all it is: a show, and a fatuous one at that.
02/24/06
Goes off on too many tangents from the central story with irrelevant subplots that might actually have been decent movies on their own.
03/16/06
Such tales are the issue du jour stateside, which makes Don't Tell's slavish adherence to Dr. Phil–inspired recovered-memory orthodoxies seem more than a touch ingenuous.
03/16/06
Though tackling such potentially subversive subjects as incest and lesbianism, this inexplicably Oscar-nominee from Italy is basically a Lifetime Original performed as a magic show.
03/19/06
Comencini translates these tensions from her novel Beast in the Heart with a literal hand that is inclined to underscore anguished looks with explanatory flashbacks.
03/16/06
Top CriticA not-bad soap opera.
03/16/06
It's swiftly paced and never dull, but the heavy-handed symbolism comes fast and thick.
03/17/06
Here's the problem with Cristina Comencini's Don't Tell: it should have been directed by Pedro Almodovar.
03/17/06
Days of Our Lives fans, enjoy.
03/17/06
Top CriticA paradigmatically mediocre foreign-film-Oscar nominee.
03/14/06
Top CriticJust because American films frequently exploit repressed memories as a plot device in nasty genre pictures doesn't make the genteel Don't Tell a sophisticated or particularly insightful film.
03/16/06
Don't Tell, which was unaccountably nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film, is no better than a second-tier candidate for the Lifetime Channel.
03/16/06
Top CriticThe film meanders and becomes painfully arbitrary in its storyline... Child abuse + funny lesbians = hilarious!!!
03/21/06
A well-acted melodrama with some engaging characters and a storyline that holds the attention
03/16/06
The lifelong shame and trauma experienced by the victims of childhood incest are grippingly dramatized by Cristina Comencini, consummate mistress of Italian family drama, in Don't Tell, probably her most successful film.
03/16/06
A persuasive if not groundbreaking drama.
03/16/06
Powerfully moving but laced with incisive wit.
10/24/05
Well worth seeing for its sensitive and never maudlin portrayal of a sister and brother bonded together by a family secret.
03/17/06
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