Average Rating: 7.5/10
Reviews Counted: 37
Fresh: 31 | Rotten: 6
Critics find Ratcatcher to be hauntingly beautiful, though its story is somewhat hard to stomach.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 1
Critics find Ratcatcher to be hauntingly beautiful, though its story is somewhat hard to stomach.
liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 4,534
Lynne Ramsay's debut feature Ratcatcher is a gritty but often lyrical portrait of a boy growing up on the wrong side of the Scottish tracks. James (William Eadie) is a 12-year-old coming of age in a rough working-class section of Glasgow. Something of a misfit, James has only two close friends, Margaret Anne (Leanne Mullen), an older girl whose need to be loved often leads her into ill-advised sexual episodes with the neighborhood boys, and Kenny (John Miller), a half-bright kid who loves
Jan 1, 1999 Wide
Sep 10, 2002
G2 Films
All Critics (44) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (33) | Rotten (6) | DVD (9)
Some may find such wrenching realities shocking, if not reprehensible. Others may glean meaning in their starkness -- a meaning that transcends the film's despair with the power of its truth.
Ramsay's imaginative shot-making gifts make for a sublime result, creating a different sort of magical realism than we're used to seeing.
In any good film, the opening shot is telling, and Ratcatcher is a very good film.
Lynne Ramsay bears watching. But when we talk about advances in the art of movies we have to be talking about leaps of feeling, not just leaps of technique.
Ramsay tells much of the story through a series of images, each more marvellous than the last.
There's a light touch in evidence, balancing the bleakness with odd lyrical moments and unexpected humor.
This is often a stunningly, grimly beautiful film, but one that leaves a bitter aftertaste.
artful and astonishingly beautiful
Writer-director Ramsay has a deft touch throughout: Her actors all seem natural, and her occasional touches of magic realism...help to soften the blows of squalor.
Ratcatcher is an inner-city tragedy that plays its story simply, sorrowfully, and beautifully.
Done so deftly, with such a exquisitely poetic touch and keen understanding of the paradoxical coexistence of filth and beauty in the world, that you can forgive some of its narrative triteness.
Difficult but rewarding
A surprisingly assured and highly original directorial debut.
A gritty, realistic, sort of depressing movie, but if you like those kinds of dramas, it's really good. I think it was a good movie.
September 6, 2010Super Reviewer
This is a film that has always been highly recommended to me and whilst I believe this to be a film that has portrayed a gritty Drama, with a realistic setting and very natural performances, I seemed to have missed the point to the film. the storyline to me failed to deliver a means to an end, which is such a shame
March 25, 2007Super Reviewer
| 35% | The Hangover Part II |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 81% | Kung Fu Panda 2 |
| 44% | Cowboys & Aliens |
| 83% | Rise of the Planet of the Apes |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 88% | Lady and the Tramp |
| 69% | A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas |
| 21% | Fireflies in the Garden |
| 45% | The Rebound |
Journey 2 Not Worth the Trip
What are his 10 best movies ever?
See the all-new action-packed trailer!
Five new Marvelous pictures