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Disgrace (2008)

tomatometer

81

Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 58
Fresh: 47 | Rotten: 11

Featuring outstanding performances from John Malkovich and newcomer Jessica Haines, Disgrace is a disturbing, powerful drama.

91

Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 1

Featuring outstanding performances from John Malkovich and newcomer Jessica Haines, Disgrace is a disturbing, powerful drama.

audience

63

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 1,663

My Rating

Movie Info

John Malkovich stars in director Steve Jacobs' adaptation of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel concerning a Cape Town educator whose flight from scandal leads him into a direct confrontation with the lingering demons of apartheid. Fastidious Cape Town college professor David Lurie (Malkovich) may see himself as somewhat impervious, but he's about to bring about his own downfall due to a selfish and foolhardy relationship with a student who isn't afraid to drag their clandestine affair

R, 1 hr. 58 min.

Art House & International, Drama

Anna Maria Monticelli

Apr 27, 2010

Maximum Film Distribution

Cast

All Critics (58) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (11) | DVD (4)

The movie eventually begins to wilt under the sober, plodding direction of Steve Jacobs, but the thoughtful screenplay gives Malkovich a complex, increasingly reflective character arc that he plays with great feeling.

October 2, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Demanding but ultimately rewarding...

September 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | Comment
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Unfortunately, though Malkovich remains a compelling and cerebral screen presence, he comes off as too innately detached and prickly to elicit much empathy (not that his character is asking for it, mind you).

September 25, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comment
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Disgrace is an ugly movie, at times torturous to watch. It probably needs to be.

September 24, 2009 Full Review Source: Boston Globe | Comment
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I awaited the closing scenes of Disgrace with a special urgency, because the story had gripped me deeply but left me with no idea how it would end. None -- and I really cared.

September 24, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Newcomer Jessica Haines is transparent and heartbreaking as the prof's unorthodox daughter, a victim of violence as the old ways crumble.

September 23, 2009 Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | Comment
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Steve Jacobs' adaptation of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize-winning novel Disgrace fearlessly pares back the layers of post-Apartheid South Africa within the microcosm of a father/daughter relationship.

April 19, 2010 Full Review Source: Rotten Tomatoes | Comment
Rotten Tomatoes

If you know the novel, you're likely to feel that something has been lost here; if you don't, you still have the film's monotonous pacing to contend with. Still, Jacobs has directed an intelligent, intriguing drama.

December 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | Comment
Sunday Times (UK)

This chilly film gets surprisingly close to the tone of Coetzee's precise prose.

December 11, 2009 Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | Comment
Observer [UK]

Surprisingly successful adaptation.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

It's an enormously complicated story with great potential for reductive schmaltz, but this is avoided thanks to Anna Maria Monticelli's sharp, sensitive screenplay and superb performances.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

A perfectly cast John Malkovich gives a superb performance in a powerful and intelligent study of a man coming back from the brink.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

It's hard to say what this solid but unadventurous film adds to Coetzee's powerful source material.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Times [UK] | Comment
Times [UK]

A worthwhile film which is concerned to do the right thing by a modern classic.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

It's a faithful adaptation, but one that's been indifferently shot by director Steve Jacobs, whose blunt technique tends to flatten the book's morose charge. Still, the acting is often excellent.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | Comment
Daily Telegraph

This disquieting drama serves as a platform for Malkovich, whose eloquent performance draws you in with great compassion.

December 4, 2009 Comment
Little White Lies

Not a comfortable watch... but still powerful and clear-eyed.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Total Film

As the last shot lingers, you long to find out what happens next.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: This is London | Comment
This is London

This is tragic inevitability at one mile per hour, extending into a slow, sunbaked danse macabre the drama's heartbreak and the guilt, anguish and wrath.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Financial Times | Comment
Financial Times

The visionary gravity of J M Coetzee's Booker-winning novel is perhaps untranslatable to the screen, but Steve Jacobs's film is a very creditable try.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Independent | Comment
Independent

The screen version does not disappoint and features an outstanding performance from John Malkovich.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Daily Express | Comment
Daily Express

So packed with big issues that it sometimes feels like a bit too much. But it's provocative and fascinating, and never offers any easy answers.

December 4, 2009 Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | Comment
Shadows on the Wall

Engaging, powerful and absorbing drama that doesn't offer any easy answers but exerts a tight grip, thanks to a terrific performance by John Malkovich.

December 3, 2009 Full Review Source: ViewLondon | Comment
ViewLondon

More convincing as an allegory, but faithful to Coetzee's acerbic, alternative view of S. Africa's future than the usual uplifting themes of reconciliation and forgiveness.

October 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Film-Forward.com | Comment
Film-Forward.com
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Disgrace

In the first third of the film Disgrace, it seems obvious to whom and what the title refers, but once Malkovich leaves his university position in Cape Town to visit his daughter on the outskirts of a rural community, the film offers a much deeper story, made all the more poignant by the several references to Lord Byron

December 8, 2010
maxthesax
paul sandberg

Super Reviewer

What is so fantastic about this powerful drama is not only its sheer intelligence in raising numerous questions on good and evil, morality and amorality, but that it is also gripping and completely unpredictable.

January 31, 2010
blacksheepboy

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Schande (DE)
  • Desgracia (ES)
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