Circle of Friends Reviews
Top CriticA lot of films, especially love stories, seek a level of comfort through predictability, but this one goes too far.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Three female friends grow up in a small town in Ireland in the mid-50s and attend college in Dublin in this nostalgic soap opera that's vaguely evocative of Peyton Place, though generally less memorable.
The fizzing dialogue gets all the little details right, but the plot's nothing new, and the lingering shots of hibernian greenery aim straight for mid-Atlantic bland-out.
Young Benny has a nice smile, and she and Jack seem like pleasant people, but in the end (and in the beginning and in the middle) it's hard to get worked up about them.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Cinematter
The big question, will they get together, is resolved too soon in this film, leaving the final half meandering through the Irish countryside.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Internet Reviews
The writer (Andrew Davies) took no risks, and the result is a completely predictable plot.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Jam! Movies
The movie, a self-consciously simple exercise in familiarity, sometimes lapses into complacency.
| Original Score: 2/5
Heartwarming and poignant, a love story that glows with intelligence and feeling.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
eFilmCritic.com
Sweet, funny, and full of the charming Minnie Driver.
| Original Score: 4/5
Filmcritic.com
Excellent acting by all the players and the film's unique change of setting make Circle of Friends a worthwhile picture, but it suffers from a painfully slow pace and no real originality in its message.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Spirituality and Practice
Wry, wise, and wonderful valentine to intimate matters of the heart.
Driver is impulsively sweet, touching and hilarious as she copes with her new, romantic life.
Driver's tough core of honesty and wit is bewitching. So's the movie.
Capital Times (Madison, WI)
Sweet Irish melodrama, with a hilariously oily performance by Alan Cumming.
| Original Score: 3/5
Laramie Movie Scope
It's intelligent and moving and it never resorts to cheap melodrama.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
