Sensitively adapted from the achingly sad, luminous novel by Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces is a story of unspeakable loss and how it eats at the souls of survivors.
Fugitive Pieces (2008)
Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Stephen Dillane, Rade Sherbedgia, Rosamund Pike, Ayelet Zurer, Robbie Kay
Reviews
Feels less like a redemptive survivor's story and more like a commercial for some terrific Mediterranean resort.
...a drama about good people struggling to make the right choices in life.
Bit by fragmented bit, it all adds up to a one-note portrait of its protagonist. Granted, that one note is a powerful one.
This lyrical drama about memory and survivor's guilt taps a deep reservoir of emotions.
A generally dull and unmemorable adaptation of Anne Michaels' extraordinary prose-poetry novel.
It’s a character study in which the lead participant is the least interesting person in the movie. There’s something inherently frustrating and unsatisfying about that.
Fugitive Pieces, however well-meaning, is still pretty much an emotionally distanced slog.
Though much of the film's power is tamped down by the passive storytelling style, Dillane's performance as the adult Jakob is compelling, and Ayelet Zurer is beguiling as Jakob's late-in-life soul mate.
[A] lovely, absorbing adaptation of Anne Michaels' lauded novel.
Like the Holocaust survivor who occupies its wounded centre, Jeremy Podeswa's elegant, stern adaptation of Anne Michaels' novel Fugitive Pieces keeps us quietly, intractably, at a distance.
Once you adjust to the film's deliberate pace and literary rhythms, there are innumerable visual and emotional pleasures to be had.
For a tale spiked with so much torment, Fugitive Pieces feels remarkably soothing.
The strengths of Fugitive Pieces are its fluidity and subtlety. Emotional repression may be one of the most difficult conditions to portray honestly, and Dillane's performance of Jakob is a study in the art of creating sympathy by not asking for it.
In many ways, Fugitive Pieces is a beautiful film. But it's a bit too beautiful.
A poignant and heart-affecting screen adaptation of a 1996 novel about suffering and the redemptive power of love.
The best approach to the movie is to stay home with the celebrated novel on which it's based.
Canadian filmmaker Jeremy Podeswa has given it the old college try, but in pursuit of tact and sensitivity, he has hollowed out the novel’s urgency.
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by: ReelReviewer.com 5/7


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