Average Rating: 5.9/10
Reviews Counted: 135
Fresh: 78 | Rotten: 57
The Secret Life of Bees has moments of charm, but is largely too maudlin and sticky-sweet.
Average Rating: 6.1/10
Critic Reviews: 28
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 11
The Secret Life of Bees has moments of charm, but is largely too maudlin and sticky-sweet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 109,062
Gina Prince-Bythewood's adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Secret Life of Bees stars Dakota Fanning as Lily, a 14-year-old growing up in a small Southern town in 1964. She is haunted by memories of shooting her mother when she was a young girl. Lily lives with her emotionally distant father, and her best friend is their African-American housekeeper Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson). After locals beat Rosaleen for attempting to register as a voter, and Lily's dad goes one step too far during an
Oct 17, 2008 Wide
Feb 3, 2009
$37.7M
Fox Searchlight
All Critics (138) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (79) | Rotten (57) | DVD (2)
The filmmakers give Latifah and Fanning room to create characters that breathe in the sweet smell of clover and breathe out the contented sigh of independence.
Sweat and good intentions, however, will take you only so far. And they take Bees right up to the threshold of entertaining%u2014but not one step further.
The honey runs thick in The Secret Life of Bees, and so does the treacle.
It's hard to roll your eyes when they're full of tears.
The film is full of sweet, subtle touches.
Through it all, Fanning more than keeps up with the big girls.
All the pieces are there for a good movie but there's an undeniable sense of reluctance to put them into play. Every time it seems like the film might be taking a chance it retreats to safe ground.
A sweet, sentimental story with a sting in the tail.
Can I tell you a secret? This movie is *really* good. Grab Nana and go see it!
Bees is almost too sweet, but with enduring enough performances to make a solid movie.
(...) Hay un mérito atendible en la directora y es evitar caer en la sensiblería barata que el asunto arriesgaba.
The story is a gentle depiction of harsh times that works best as a coming-of-age parable, not so well as a historical drama.
Once again, Dakota Fanning demonstrates that, even as a teenager, she already has the acting skills and range equal to -- if not better than -- her A-list contemporaries.
Glossy yet ultimately shallow, this platitudinous, unconvincing drama makes The Colour Purple look like Mississippi Burning.
On most levels the film, which has a surprising number of unconvincing details, takes the sugary option; it shies away from the harsher realities whenever possible.
A dense story about a little girl and the impact her mother's death has on her makes terrific cinema in this beautifully realised film
The film has a dream-like quality above its punchy emotional core
Smart and sentimental but not syrupy, with a well-executed script guaranteed to leave you in tears.
The Secret Life of Bees features another buzz-worthy turn by Dakota Fanning.
The source material remains affecting and the cast work hard to add dimension to a lacklustre screenplay. But sadly, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
Good movie, sad, but not totally depressing. The whole cast are excellent, particularly Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson and Queen Latifah. I am not sure I would have wanted to go to the movies and see this one, but as a DVD movie, no complaints.
October 20, 2008Super Reviewer
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