Click to read the article
Comment
04/30/05
Rate this Movie 
Bright Leaves (2004)
90
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work
Reviews Counted:21
Fresh:19
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: A rich, eccentric documentary about both filmmaking and the tobacco industry.
Theatrical Release:Aug 25, 2004 Limited
Synopsis: Ross McElwee directs this autobiographical documentary about his family's roots in the tobacco business in North Carolina. Taking a sabbatical from his home in Boston, he offers a culturally... [More]
Director: Ross McElwee
Get This Movie
Reviews for Bright Leaves
Top CriticBright Leaves is not the kind of film that thetruth.com would use in its anti-smoking campaign.
04/28/05
Top CriticA gently provocative film diary about tobacco and its mixed legacy.
02/11/05
Top CriticMcElwee's best film since Sherman's March.
12/03/04
Top CriticBright Leaves is a beguiling film. Watching it is like spending time with an old, somewhat chatty but endearing friend.
12/03/04
Top CriticIt's a meandering visit by a curious man with a quiet sense of humor.
12/03/04
Top CriticMcElwee's autobiographical films ... are leisurely jaunts with a gentle humor that never mocks his subjects.
12/02/04
Top CriticThe mysteries McElwee sets out to solve aren't very involving, and his meandering style, while charming first and literate, becomes repetitive and yes, even a little dull.
11/30/04
Top CriticInevitably poignant but also often amusing and always deeply touching, this film is likely to stick in one's memory for all its concerns, not just cigarettes.
11/12/04
Top CriticA witty and sometimes touching tale of film, family and lung cancer.
10/21/04
Top CriticLike Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and Spurlock's Super Size Me, McElwee's Bright Leaves takes on a sizable foe -- in this case, big tobacco -- but with such grace and wit that his message never seems medicinal.
10/15/04
Top CriticWe are hooked into a low-tech but compelling dynamic -- between relatively static images and McElwee's sensitive, connective narrative.
10/08/04
Top CriticThe results are brilliantly amusing; this is a movie that doesn't make you feel stupid on the way out or like someone has been spraying you in the face while making his talking points.
10/08/04
Top CriticWhere most documentaries offer us facts to hold on to, [McElwee's] are obsessed with the mystery of things we don't know and never will.
09/24/04
Top CriticPersonal yet the opposite of egotistical, truthful yet playful, happily distractible yet patient, and above all grateful for those in the world he loves around him, McElwee makes movies the way life might, ideally, be lived.
09/07/04
Top CriticMcElwee is digressive in the best sense. He takes the time to discover what people are like when they’re being themselves; he wants to know where their lives are taking them, what byways they are going down.
08/29/04
Top CriticBecomes both a mystery and memoir in progress and though the filmmaker does not find the truth he is looking for, it was clearly a quest worth undertaking.
08/26/04
Top CriticRoss McElwee shows just how far subtlety can go with his latest charming effort.
08/26/04
Top CriticA rewardingly personal docu in which the filmmaker deftly uses his specific family legacy as a jumping off point for wry ruminations on American history, the tobacco business, public health and cinematic license.
08/24/04
Top CriticAn utterly mundane miracle, a sampling of gentle insight and poetic retrospection quietly at odds with the exploitative culture around it.
08/24/04
Top CriticWhat’s Hot On RT
Fresh Links
Featured
History of Disney Animation 
MSN Movies offers a little background on the success of Disney Animation.
90 Years of Screen Vampires
TIME takes a look back at the history of vampires on film.
Virtuoso Vistas of Lovely Bones
Techland examines the visual splendor of Peter Jackson's upcoming film.
Recent Headlines as TV Movies
AOL put together a list of 10 recent news items that would be perfect as TV Movies.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter
Get the latest Tomatometer updates on upcoming movies!
IGN RSS Feeds