The Girl in the Park Reviews
December 5, 2008
An overwrought melodrama with bold intentions but poor execution.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
December 5, 2008
Essentially about loss, guilt and regret, Auburn's film also examines Julia's increasingly unhealthy obsession with her surrogate daughter, which gives it an air of uneasy tension that never amounts to much.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/6
December 5, 2008
The film stretches credibility a little with the coincidences that could yet make Louise the missing girl, but gives the actors plenty to work with.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
December 5, 2008
while there is a lot to like in Auburn's tightly focused film, it never fully pulls together.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
December 5, 2008
Auburn leaves too many dramatic holes and blows his potentially explosive 'Festen' moment by allowing a confrontation over dinner to fizzle into anti-climax.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
December 5, 2008
The kindest adjectives to describe Weaver's performance would be 'overwrought' and 'unsympathetic'.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
December 5, 2008
Weaver's still unresolved grief, subtly hits every note that Changeling plinked or plonked like a honky-tonk hokum artist.
December 5, 2008
There's a prissy self-congratulation about early parts of David Auburn's family-bereavement drama, though it got to me eventually.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
December 5, 2008
It is not without its problems, but this is, at the very least, an attention-grabbing first feature with a fine example of ensemble playing from its cast.
Original Score: 4/5
December 4, 2008
Impressively directed, sharply written and emotionally involving drama with a terrific central performance from Sigourney Weaver.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
December 1, 2008
Wryly amusing, achingly poignant and pleasingly understated, with a stand-out performance from Weaver.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
September 12, 2008
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
October 30, 2007
...a sporadically overwrought but mostly compelling film...
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
September 11, 2007
Auds can see what Auburn was aiming for, but his portrait of grieving and wishful thinking doesn't connect emotionally. He's not helped by Weaver's brittle, unsympathetic perf, which borders on caricature.