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The Intended (2002)

tomatometer

17

Average Rating: 4.7/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 10

Predictable and pointless melodrama.

audience

47

liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 84

My Rating

Movie Info

Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring directs the Dogme 95-inspired period drama The Intended, co-written by leading lady Janet McTeer. Shot with digital video, the film takes place in the Malaysia jungle during the 1920s. Fortysomething British woman Sarah (McTeer) travels with her younger fiancé, Hamish Winslow (JJ Feild), to a small community near Borneo. Hamish has been hired to survey the land and map a road for a trading post run by a deeply dysfunctional family. The local ruler is tough

Unrated, 1 hr. 52 min.

Drama

Janet McTeer, Kristian Levring

Dec 28, 2004

IFC Films

Cast

All Critics (27) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (18) | DVD (4)

Too dank and familiar an expedition.

July 9, 2004 Full Review Source: Denver Post | Comment
Denver Post
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A story bent on melodrama and borderline sadism.

July 2, 2004 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
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It's a moderately creepy, man-beyond- civilization exercise that can't decide whether it's arty or scary, and thus ends up being neither.

July 2, 2004 Comment
Detroit News
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We begin hoping the ghost of Tennessee Williams will jump out of the bush and inform these characters that it takes more than wounded people with dark secrets, annoying insects and dripping moisture to make something of a tale like this.

July 2, 2004 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | Comment
Detroit Free Press
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Fans of Jungle Gothics would do better to let this one slip back into the underbrush.

July 1, 2004 Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | Comment
Newark Star-Ledger
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Few actresses can deliver intensity like McTeer, and it's that distinctive, all-purpose stare coupled with her sheer physicality that once again dominates the story.

June 29, 2004 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
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Shrewd and astute, this is a film with a power that sneaks up on you and lingers long after it's over in a way you can't easily shake.

December 31, 2004 Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | Comment
Flick Filosopher

introspectively good

December 27, 2004 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | Comment
Filmcritic.com

Tropical tripe.

November 13, 2004 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

The pace is stultifying, and even though the ensemble looks realistically stinky and sweaty, the stately progression of events mirrors far too well the torpor of the tropics.

July 30, 2004 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian

An irritating bit of jungle gothic gone bad.

July 10, 2004 Full Review Source: San Diego Metropolitan | Comment
San Diego Metropolitan

Levring and an excellent cast are lost in the shadow of Conrad and other masters, and their sex-money theme requires a genius of hopelessness like Erich von Stroheim.

July 9, 2004 Full Review Source: San Diego Union-Tribune | Comment
San Diego Union-Tribune

Although phenomenally well-acted, the film's leisurely pace ultimately makes it feel as oppressive as the tropical heat and humidity that gradually turn the characters into slow-moving heaps of damp, dirty rags.

June 25, 2004 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

A stunning achievement, an emotionally charged period drama that unfolds with the tragic inevitability of a Joseph Conrad novella.

June 25, 2004 Comment
Reel.com

Aided by a terrific cast, this flick effectively conveys a gloomy, claustrophobic sense of doom.

June 25, 2004 Full Review Source: E! Online | Comment
E! Online

If Wolfgang Peterson had any guts, she would have been offered Helen of Troy.

June 25, 2004 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine
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