Face (2004)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:23
Fresh:12
Rotten:11
Average Rating:5.7/10
Theatrical Release:Mar 4, 2005 Limited
Synopsis: Bertha Bay-Sa Pan's directorial debut is an ambitious drama that tells an ultimately uplifting story about the importance of family and the role it plays in shaping a child's life. Genie (Kristy... [More]
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Reviews for Face
| Tomatometer | Critic | Review | Category |
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 4/5 |
No review available.
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 2.5/4 |
The performances are almost enough to overcome the story’s essential inertness. Full Review |
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3/4 |
By the end of Face, we've been drawn deep into the battle for both communal support and individual freedom that marks the progress of so many ethnic groups in America. Full Review |
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3/5 |
With no access to these women's inner selves, we are left wanting at least a fuller portrait of their outer lives, some way to infer the meaning that the film declines to provide. Full Review |
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B |
Ling, delicate and haunted, and Wu, a real spitfire, make their reconciliation sting as much as it soothes. Full Review |
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A film with visual flair, musical inspiration and dramatic gravity. From the top to the bottom of the cast list, there are performances rich in detail and intelligence. Full Review |
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2.5/5 |
New Jersey-born, Taiwan-raised director/cowriter Bay-Sa Pan gives the conflict a culturally particular spin and elicits strong performances from her appealing cast. Full Review |
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2.5/4 |
It's a tale worth telling again -- especially if you feel the material as strongly as recent Columbia film-school grad Bertha Bay-Sa Pan seems to. Full Review |
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2/4 |
A sincere but superficial version of a familiar story. Full Review |
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3/5 |
A meditation on the conflict between family loyalties and personal ambition, Face ... can feel slight on a first viewing. But ... it is likely to remain in your head long afterward. Full Review |
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2.5/5 |
the director seems all too cognizant of her pedestrian script’s inability to express more than superficial pathos Full Review |
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The movie never really finds a fresh groove. Full Review |
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B+ |
Bertha Bay-Sa Pan gets good performances -- notably from Ling, who convincingly evolves from mixed-up coed to successful businesswoman. Full Review |
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2/5 |
There's something especially frustrating about small, personal independent movies that adhere to the stodgy conventions of small, personal, independent movies as if compelled by a cadre of militant MFA candidates. Full Review |
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2/4 |
Well made, nice performances, very slowly paced. Full Review |
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The story's conflicts between modern and traditional attitudes, family and independence feel like familiar fodder, and the pedestrian approach fails to inject much freshness into the material. Full Review |
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Feels like the stretched-out short student film that it is. Full Review |
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Too slight in realization and trite in characterization to work as it might have. Full Review |
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3/4 |
It is the best performance of [Ling's] eclectic international career, and it raises the level of this otherwise competently made movie to something more special. Full Review |
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B- |
Face is a film of considerable charm and warmth, even if the material sometimes feels well worn. Full Review |
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