Rotten Tomatoes Logo Do you want to see ‘Silk’?

Silk (2007)

tomatometer

7

Average Rating: 3.8/10
Reviews Counted: 56
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 52

Silk contains a simple love triangle story but director Francois Gerard goes to painstaking lengths to turn it into a protracted and wearisome art film.

12

Average Rating: 4.2/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 15

Silk contains a simple love triangle story but director Francois Gerard goes to painstaking lengths to turn it into a protracted and wearisome art film.

audience

32

liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 9,783

My Rating

Movie Info

Francois Girard's adaptation of Alessandro Baricco's novel Silk stars Michael Pitt as a young Frenchman who travels to Japan at the request of a wealthy silkworm magnate who asks him to smuggle back some new worms. The mission succeeds, and this allows the man to live in great comfort with his wife (Keira Knightley). After a few years, they are unable to conceive a child, a situation that leads to the man taking on a lover during his subsequent visits to Japan. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

R, 1 hr. 48 min.

Drama, Romance

François Girard, Michael Golding

Feb 26, 2008

$1.0M

Picturehouse

Cast

All Critics (58) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (4) | Rotten (53) | DVD (3)

François Girard's Silk is not merely painterly. It might as well be a painting, for all that it eschews storytelling, forcing the viewer to scan the lush imagery in search of clues to what, if anything, might be going on.

September 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Though elegantly staged, Silk is badly written and indifferently cast.

September 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Silk isn't just bad. It's utterly mad.

September 18, 2007 Full Review Source: Village Voice | Comment
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's a perfect example of how awful direction and performances can ruin an adequate screenplay.

September 15, 2007 Full Review Source: ReelViews | Comment
ReelViews
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Limp satire.

September 14, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Daily News | Comment
New York Daily News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Director] Girard confuses pretty scenery doused in ponderous music with epic visual poetry. Impenetrable musings intended to evoke ineffable romantic longing leave you scratching your head as you wait, ever more impatiently, for something to happen.

September 14, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It is worse than a straightforward bad film, it is a middling, stagnant film that could have been extraordinary.

February 28, 2008 Full Review Source: Christianity Today | Comment

In a film that just happens to be about the topic of fabric, Silk like a mannequin draped in an elegant costume, is all shimmering surface and hollow core.

February 20, 2008 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

i sta narkotika tha se riksei, i stin katatonia, an kaneis to lathos na tin pareis sta sobara os otidipote allo para eykairia eksaskisis ton kanibalistikon soy enstikton

January 14, 2008 Full Review Source: Movies for the Masses | Comment
Movies for the Masses

A flat story, lean characters and a miscast lead make this a poor facsimile of period epics like Farewell My Concubine.

November 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Tremulous eroticism a-go-go, but it's all completely lifeless.

November 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Independent | Comment
Independent

Dralon is more like it.

November 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

THE new Keira Knightley film is a visual delight. Unfortunately, the dialogue is far from delightful.

November 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Sun Online | Comment
Sun Online

Crashing bore of a movie.

November 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Times [UK] | Comment
Times [UK]

A problematic period movie, Silk is anything but finely spun. Unaided by lacklusture performances from the leads, director Francois Girard seems more interested in crafting a beautiful travelogue than he does a moving melodrama.

November 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

Francois Girard's film proves a cross-cultural yawn, as if taking its cue from Pitt's blank-faced blandness and Keira Knightley's anaemic support.

November 9, 2007 Full Review Source: BBC | Comment

Sluggish storytelling enlivens neither Pitt's infatuation with a local concubine nor the stubbornly feudal society it's set against. Worst of all, though, you just never give a toss.

November 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Total Film

Gorgeous to look at but ultimately disappointing, Silk is let down by stilted direction, an extremely dull script and a badly miscast Michael Pitt.

November 8, 2007 Full Review Source: ViewLondon | Comment
ViewLondon

Dull period drama goes for sensuality over story.

October 22, 2007 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

The movie is at its best as a collage of environments representing states of mind.

October 17, 2007 Full Review Source: culturevulture.net | Comment
culturevulture.net

It is interesting and not riveting, lovely and not luxurious, good and not great. Some may even find it boring. It certainly is repetitive.

September 28, 2007 Full Review Source: Jam! Movies | Comment
Jam! Movies
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Silk

I've no idea what compelled me to watch this film, either before watching or during and whilst I wouldn't be able to explain the slow plotted story to anyone else, I have to admit that there is something about Michael Pitt that is addictive to watch and perhaps that is what made me stay with this film and strangely I

February 8, 2009
76Majikat

Super Reviewer

Wonderful period drama-romance story (there goes Kiera Knightley's other period movies since Atonement and Pride & Prejudice). The journeys are probably the best bits in the movie, with lush landscapes filling the screen in all serenity of the turmoils that are yet to come. I thought director Francois Girard tried

February 20, 2010
deano
Dean McKenna

Super Reviewer

Silk Quotes

No quotes approved yet for Silk. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Latest News for Silk

What's Hot On RT

Luis Guzman
Luis Guzman

What are his 10 best movies ever?

<em>Amazing Spider-Man</em>
Amazing Spider-Man

See the all-new action-packed trailer!

The Avengers!
The Avengers!

Five new Marvelous pictures

Total Recall
Total Recall

Unconventional Superheroes

Top Movie Quizzes

LEGO Mania: 2011 Best Picture Nominees
by natalie - 18,541 taken
created 12 months ago
How Much Do You Know About Leonardo DiCaprio?
by natalie - 44,364 taken
created 15 months ago
Pixar Movies!
by jdikwlzviv - 27,114 taken
created 15 months ago
The Wizards of Harry Potter
by jdikwlzviv - 27,620 taken
created 15 months ago

Foreign Titles

  • Silk (2007) (DE)
  • Silk (2007) (CA)
Help | About | Jobs | Newsletter | Critics Submission | API | Licensing | Blog | Developers | Mobile