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Fugitive Pieces (2007)

tomatometer

69

Average Rating: 6.2/10
Reviews Counted: 74
Fresh: 51 | Rotten: 23

Though the retelling is a bit too subtle, the moving story and solid performances lift Fugitive Pieces beyond standard holocaust tales.

72

Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 25
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 7

Though the retelling is a bit too subtle, the moving story and solid performances lift Fugitive Pieces beyond standard holocaust tales.

audience

62

liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 33,289

My Rating

Movie Info

Author Anne Michaels's poetic novel comes to the screen courtesy of director Jeremy Podeswa in this period drama concerning a Holocaust survivor who remains eternally haunted by the uncertain fate of his beloved sister. Athos (Rade Sherbedgia) is an archeologist conducting a dig in Nazi-occupied Poland. When Athos discovers a seven-year-old boy named Jakob (Robbie Kay) hiding near the work site, he smuggles the frightened boy back to Greece and promises to shelter him when the Nazis come

R,

Drama

Jeremy Podeswa

Oct 14, 2008

$0.4M

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All Critics (74) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (51) | Rotten (23) | DVD (1)

One of the most delicate, approachable and rewarding Holocaust movies of recent years.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Fugitive Pieces delivers its own evocative poetry.

July 11, 2008 Full Review Source: Denver Post
Denver Post
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The great Serbian actor Rade Serbedzija gives Fugitive Pieces its heart.

July 11, 2008 Full Review Source: Film.com
Film.com
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Fugitive Pieces is an often lovely work, haunting its viewer long afterward with its quiet observations on what remains with us.

June 27, 2008 Full Review Source: Seattle Times
Seattle Times
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Tasteful, unremarkable art-house fare, rescued from complete irrelevance by Stephen Dillane's bottled-up performance as a writer scarred by the Holocaust.

June 13, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Fugitive Pieces is often quiet, lyrical, reflective and underplayed. It doesn't minimize Holocaust suffering--far from it--but it strives, often successfully, to unearth the innate good in people Anne Frank alluded to so eloquently.

June 13, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Distractingly jumping back and forth in time, the film falters badly in the modern era, yet its tale is still a moving one.

July 29, 2011 Full Review Source: indieWIRE
indieWIRE

Nostalgic, deeply felt, and refreshingly astute, "Fugitive Pieces" is something of a rare bird these days%u2014a big-budget, transnational historical drama that actually justifies its scope and subject matter with more than visual opulence.

August 8, 2009 Full Review Source: indieWIRE
indieWIRE

Podeswa's confusing, commonplace film lumbers along with a painful sincerity.

June 2, 2009 Full Review Source: Observer [UK]
Observer [UK]

Plays out with such daunting high-mindedness it makes The Reader look like Transformers.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph
Daily Telegraph

Fugitive Pieces reduces the Holocaust and its aftermath to a cosy soap opera.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: This is London
This is London

Given the source novel, Podeswa's attempt to adapt Fugitive Pieces is admirable in itself. Yet despite an enthusiastic cast, this fails to transport you in the same way. Tying itself in narrative knots, the end result is stilted.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Film4

The movie has little dramatic momentum, and its journey is essentially Jakob's incremental acceptance of his fate. But Dillane and the writer-director Jeremy Podeswa create such a compelling central character that it hardly matters.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Times [UK]
Times [UK]

His journey towards peace of mind involves lots of lyrical philosophising, which presumably comes straight from the film's source novel, by Anne Michaels, and doesn't lend itself to dramatisation, despite Dillane's typically intelligent performance.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Times [UK]
Times [UK]

Anne Michael's complex, poetic novel is here adapted into a stolid, somewhat po-faced film, but one that still manages to tease some affecting drama out of its scholarly premise.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK]
Guardian [UK]

Despite a rich premise, the soul-searching of the older Jakob is, at best, curiously colourless; at worst, positively grating.

May 29, 2009
Little White Lies

An intermittently powerful, if not entirely successful, piece.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Sky Movies
Sky Movies

But while there's life, there's hope, and Jeremy Podeswa's delicate, deliberate adaptation of Anne Michaels' novel follows Jakob's heartrending progress from the darkness to the light.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Total Film
Total Film

There are fleeting moments of poignancy and poetry, significantly when the script features narration taken almost directly from the novel, but this is clunkily written and poorly edited.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Financial Times
Financial Times

Jeremy Podeswa's tremulous adaptation of Anne Michaels's novel aches with earnest intent and tasteful eroticism, yet it moves as heavily and lugubriously as a prison gate.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Independent

Restrained, worthy and dull.

May 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Daily Express
Daily Express

Engaging, well acted and ultimately moving drama.

May 28, 2009 Full Review Source: ViewLondon
ViewLondon

Audience Reviews for Fugitive Pieces

A Holocaust story about memory, intimacy, revelation, and redemption. My only complaint here was the very slow pace. It really drags its feet. I am sure the pacing worked better in written form, and the movie did inspire me to seek out more about this author. The novel, I am told, is written in prose form, and is as beautifully written as the story it tells. The movie comes across in the same exact way, and takes some patience to appreciate it, I guess.
May 17, 2011
itsjustme2004

Super Reviewer

A-bloody-mazing. I need this book, the story is as intriguing as it is compelling and it is told in a really beautiful manner. To be honest, I'm kinda sad most of you have picked this as a 'not interested'. I guess it's not for everyone. [review TBC].
September 14, 2009
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