Harrison's Flowers Reviews

The film presents an intense dose of reality -- too intense for some, maybe -- and it leaves us with a bitter aftertaste.

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Provides powerful drama thanks to its trenchant core story and harrowing re-creation of the brutal chaos of war.

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Built on a foundation of melodrama and implausible coincidence, Harrison's Flowers is a movie that looks far better on paper than it does onscreen.

Full Review | Original Score: 61/100

A stronger actress, say Michelle Pfeiffer or Cate Blanchette, would have given this political melodrama more credibility and power, but Andie MacDowell is poorly cast and she seems lost.

Full Review | Original Score: C

When describing an Andie MacDowell movie, the words "gritty" and "harrowing" do not immediately spring to mind.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Acutely shows the pain and horror war inflicts on regular people.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Lacking gravitas, MacDowell is a placeholder for grief, and ergo this sloppy drama is an empty vessel. Leave these Flowers unpicked -- they're dead on the vine.

Full Review | Original Score: D

Hope, desperation and the ugliness of ethnic cleansing intersect elegantly in director Elie Chouraqui's intense retelling of the 1991 Croatian-Serbian conflict in Yugoslavia.

| Original Score: 3.5/4

...overly melodramatic...

Full Review | Original Score: C

Visceral, unrelenting, affecting and, as often, exasperating.

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Utterly predictable and idiotically scripted by writer/director Elie Chouraqui.

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Ultimately, Sarah's dedication to finding her husband seems more psychotic than romantic, and nothing in the movie makes a convincing case that one woman's broken heart outweighs all the loss we witness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

This story of a determined woman's courage to find her husband in a war zone offers winning performances and some effecting moments.

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The movie too often works against itself, pitting an increasingly implausible story with Chouraqui's hard-core realism.

| Original Score: C+

A powerhouse of a film about modern journalism and war.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

This is a good movie in spurts, but when it doesn't work, it's at important times.

Full Review | Original Score: 5.5/10

The images and performances are gripping enough to override the melodramatic missteps.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Harrison's Flowers wilts.

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...a solid, well-acted adventure film that wears its condemnation and acceptance of the vagaries of civil war on its sleeve.

Full Review | Original Score: B

It's clearly a slavish imitation of The Killing Fields, but characters are uninvolving and the story far-fetched (even the title is ridiculous).

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5