Cape of Good Hope Reviews
EURWeb
A socially-relevant and meaningful film from South Africa which supplies plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about humanity's prospects.
| Original Score: 4/4
Film Journal International
Mostly manages to feel authentic and uplifting, putting a human face on a complex colonial culture.
eFilmCritic.com
Cape of Good Hope is a film about people we want so very much to love, people who keep us watching - and keep us smiling.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
... there's a temptation to call Cape a South African Crash, but it lacks both complexity and compromised characters.
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| Original Score: C
Top CriticBrown's spunky, funny Kate helps hold the piece together.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
There's so much Altmanesque activity in the film that even if some storylines temporarily don't work, others keep making up for them.
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| Original Score: 3/4
No matter how heavy-handed the sentimentality gets, the film's intentions seem sincere.
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| Original Score: 3/4
St. Paul Pioneer Press
Around the margins of the story are characters whose behavior is unique.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
A post-apartheid film in which the characters are less concerned with politics than with matters of the heart.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Austin Chronicle
Despite its shortcomings, Cape of Good Hope is a hopeful piece of humanism that is difficult to begrudge too much.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
The stories are interlinked effectively, and the film strikes an upbeat note yet does not address racism and discrimination. For all its affection toward its characters, however, the film is too long and too slack.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
E! Online
With its warm heart and charming characters, Good Hope is a good choice.
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| Original Score: B
L.A. Weekly
Grounded in the easy rhythms of daily life, this charming little film shows unexpected grit.
The film's strengths are offset by flaws including an excessiveness cutesiness (there are far too many shots of adorable puppies), a tendency toward sentimental cliches and too many jarring shifts in tone.
TheMovieChicks.com
A South African movie that departs from the political strife of Apartheid - there are still issues of race and class, but they're approached in a more roundabout, accessible way that isn't so in your face.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
It's hopeful but not saccharine, ambitious but only occasionally broad. And the fact that it's set in a country still grappling with the legacy of apartheid makes its good will all the more relevant.
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| Original Score: B+
I like the spirit of it and some of the performances but [there are] too many cutesy whimsical moments, too many coincidences that just kind of neatly tied things together.
The picture isn't devoid of substance, but it doesn't allow itself to get mired in message either. It conveys its themes via likable, relatable protagonists.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
The intertwining of separate story strands is solidly structured, and the different mini-narratives resolved in unsurprising yet satisfying ways.
