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04/03/08
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Canvas (2007)
75 %
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 20
Fresh: 15
Rotten:5
Average Rating: 6.4/10
Consensus: Canvas is a faithful portrayal of mental illness highlighted by terrific performances.
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release: Oct 12, 2007 Limited
Synopsis: This debut feature from director Joseph Greco is the semi-autobiographical tale of a 10-year-old Florida boy, Chris (Devon Gearhart), who returns from a summer in Alaska to find his mentally ill mother (Marcia Gay Harden) hearing voices... [More]
Starring: Marcia Gay Harden, Joe Pantoliano, Devon Gearhart, Paul Lasa
Director: Joseph Greco
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Reviews for Canvas
Top Critic
If it weren't for the terrific performances, Canvas would be a dull and lifeless film; Marcia Gay Harden explores the schizophrenic character of Mary with a judicial technique that is both compassionate and credible.
11/10/07
Writer-director Joseph Greco makes a nice feature-film debut telling a true, disturbing story about a 10-year-old boy struggling to cope with a schizophrenic mother.
10/24/07
Top Critic
Top Critic Canvas is worth seeing for the acting, but the disease-of-the-week conventions and hackneyed visuals pretty well knock the wind out of its sails.
10/18/07
Top Critic Greco succeeds where many others have failed in giving a real sense of what it is to grow up with a parent who's hobbled by mental illness.
10/12/07
Greco takes his biggest risk, perhaps, when he puts that boat in water with father and son manning the sails. It could be a mawkish scene that sinks everything that came before it, but like the watercraft that symbolizes so much, the movie remains afloat.
10/12/07
I can see why it was a hit at film festivals. I only hope it now gets its due in theaters.
10/12/07
Top Critic First-time filmmaker Joseph Greco draws on personal experience for this devastating yet honest portrait of an ordinary Florida family.
10/12/07
Top Critic Though Harden has the showier role, a subdued Pantoliano is the movie's real star. Sometimes, the quietest performances are the most powerful.
10/12/07
Top Critic Canvas is a serious film about mental illness and a sentimental heartwarmer, and succeeds in both ways.
10/12/07
Top Critic Canvas is a movie that rings emotionally true, despite structural contrivances and dim, washed-out color.
10/12/07
Top Critic
Small and slow-moving, and not in a way that means finely detailed and pensive.
10/12/07
Despite its admirable qualities, Canvas fizzles and falls into cliche.
10/11/07
Top Critic An absence of detail means that Canvas teaches little about what it's like to be mentally ill or to know someone who is.
10/11/07
Greco's sincerity is so palpable that the frequent uplift feels deserved, but with just-passable filmmaking and the demeaning score, Canvas falls somewhere between powerful indie and made-for-TV diversion.
10/09/07
Top Critic Writer-director Joseph Greco's refusal to explain the roots of Mary's madness gives John's desperate desire to summon happier days a bewitching poignancy.
10/07/07
The director happens to know the often maligned subject of mental illness well from his own childhood as the son of a psychotic mother, and he embraces it with genuine feeling, emotional spontaneity and absence of consciously formulated dramatic pretense.
09/28/07
Top CriticLatest News for Canvas
October 11, 2007:
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Related Forums for Canvas
Amazing Movie--haven't cried like this since Dead Poet's Society
by: filmfemmefatale 10/10/07
by: filmfemmefatale 10/10/07
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