A superbly shot critique of the suffocating conformity, repression and materialism at the heart of middle-class life.
Comment
06/24/06
Bigger Than Life (1956)
94
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:17
Fresh:16
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.2/10
Reviews for Bigger Than Life
1 - 18 (sorted by source)
Ed's vision is demented and distorted, and yet, Ray insinuates, doesn't his protagonist, in an odd way, see through the smug mediocrity that is 1950s America?
09/17/09
A heady assault on the repression, complacency and frustration of 1950s America.
06/24/06
It's hard to think of another Hollywood picture with more to say about the sheer awfulness of 'normal' American family life during the 50s.
10/23/07
Top CriticThe house perfectly reflects and strains against Mason's masterful performance as the good-natured man turned bad.
06/24/06
A commercial flop at the time, Ray's 1956 film, made right after Rebel Without Cause, is nonethless one of his most poignant and visually compelling critiques of American suburban life, featuring James Mason in top form.
03/17/09
Jean-Luc Godard ranked this among the finest US films ever made. Recommendation enough.
12/30/06
A tragicomic epic that invites you to laugh uneasily.
06/13/06
This is an outstanding movie, remarkable for its seriousness and daring.
06/24/06
Those who remember the creeping terror and eeriness of Mr. Roueché's real-life yarn will be sorry to learn that there is little terror or eeriness in the film.
06/24/06
It was as much undervalued and misunderstood as the films Douglas Sirk was making at the time.
10/23/07
Recognized by many as one of the better films ever made.
05/20/07
Always a shrewd melodramatist, with a particular eye for the domestic space, Ray builds this sense of conflict into the Avery home itself, with its frequently competing horizontal and vertical patterns.
08/08/09
This is Rebel Without a Cause for the grown-up world.
06/24/06
The suits wanted a torn-from-the-headlines melodrama; what they got was the director at his expressionistic best, subverting the suburban fantasy and leaving nothing but tattered gray flannel and scorched earth in his wake.
12/25/08
An extraordinarily rich study of mid-1950s malaise.
10/23/07
James Mason has picked a powerful subject for his first 20th-Fox production and delivers it with quite a bit of dramatic distinction in carrying out the supervisory duties and as the male lead.
10/23/07
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12/31/08
1 - 18 (sorted by source)
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