Asylum Reviews
July 2, 2007
offers a bleak vision of the Fifties, where an outbreak of passion or an artistic impulse would be quickly subjected, like any other madness, to containment.
September 16, 2005
Patrick McGrath's screenplay, based on his novel, has moments big and small, delivered in appropriate dollops of awfulness.
Original Score: B-
September 16, 2005
It's a movie you fall for or you don't, and like Stella, I am not ashamed I did.
Original Score: 3/4
September 15, 2005
Based on Pat McCabe's moody novel, Asylum has an over-the-top feverishness that suits its premise.
Original Score: 3/4
September 10, 2005
Marton Csokas ... comes across as a hybrid of Russell Crowe and Clive Owen in full-on brooding mode and has a genuine chemistry with Richardson that goes some way to explaining why she stays with him as a long as she does.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
September 9, 2005
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
September 4, 2005
The film wryly wonders whether the lunatics have taken over not just the asylum but the entire world as well.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
September 2, 2005
The film, with its uniformly terrific cast, stern Gothic overtones and steady but measured pacing, is a crisp, old-fashioned delight, eschewing cheap tricks for repeated tiny pricks of unease that work up to a continuous gnawing dread.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
September 2, 2005
The film's great strength is a cast of supporting players who steal scene after scene from their leading lady.
September 2, 2005
'Asylum' is a film that enthralls and entertains while at the same time raising the hairs on the back of your neck.
August 24, 2005
A gothic fairytale.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
August 21, 2005
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
August 20, 2005
A spellbinding portrait of sexual enslavement and manipulation.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
August 19, 2005
Richardson commands every scene she's in.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
August 19, 2005
Richardson is the reason to see Asylum. A lot of what happens doesn't really make sense, yet her intensity hooks us.
Original Score: B-
August 19, 2005
Like a romance novel brought to life - high melodrama and deep emotions and a couple who want to be together, but something stands in their way.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
August 19, 2005
A chilling study in obsession aided by moody atmospherics and a solid cast.
August 18, 2005
Richardson, who also executive produced, is a heartbreaking, strong Stella, failed by being born in the wrong era -- and by the wrong men.
Full Review
| Original Score: A-
August 18, 2005
The makers of Asylum pretend they're making an art movie, and although the film has the trappings, the story is mostly Hollywood.
Original Score: 3.5/5
August 17, 2005
Ventures to the bleak side relentlessly and without apology.
Original Score: '4/4'