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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (27) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (17) | Rotten (10) | DVD (2)
The film flounders under the weight of two underwhelming and prickly protagonists who are as illogical as they are unlikable
... A technically proficient and psychologically aware piece of class baiting ...
Slickly made but ultimately pointless, this film is rescued by skillful direction and excellent actors who invest a fearless authenticity into their roles. It's just a shame that there's nothing very meaningful beneath the surface.
A gruelling suspenser told in real time, flecked with a darkly comic sensibility and a smattering of class-war critique.
Taut, tightly-plotted and at times confronting, it'll have you gripping the arm of your seat and double-locking the door.
Impressively directed, superbly acted thriller that's both suspenseful and horrifying, though the decision to keep all the violence offscreen won't work for everyone.
Its suggestion of a conscienceless underclass will be as a red rag to more conservative souls, but you suspect Williams won't care. He's becoming a real player in the cinema of ordeal.
If Michael Haneke were drafted in to direct an EastEnders Christmas special, it might look like this raw, no-budget, home-invasion nightmare.
Offers little but secondhand platitudes on the dehumanising effects of violence while proving that the generation gap is as wide as ever.
...bringing vastly different classes and generations into explosive collision, and utterly unsettling the bourgeois norms of a society that prefers to keep its problems on the other side of the door.
Deeply unpleasant, tightly scripted and well executed...
Williams is able to create an unsettling atmosphere with simple sound effects, but he fails to provide a convincing context for the extreme antisocial behaviour.
An hour and 17 minutes of my life wasted.
Super Reviewer
Superbly directed and acted home-invasion thriller that's over in a brisk 75 minutes. It's like Funny Games without the breaking of the 4th wall or the "aren't I clever, and aren't you sick" audience winking. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and that's about it, and the lack of point means it only really works as a technical exercise.
Williams tackles a growing media preoccupation in the UK, namely knife wielding yoofs, but pushes it into the face of the cosy middle classes with a worthy follow up to 'London to Brighton' (lets just ignore 'The Cottage'). What the film does well is to capture how quickly a calm suburban evening can be destroyed by the wrong knock at the door. Williams cleverly contrasts the attackers and their prey and it has a much more authentic feel than say Haneke's 'Funny Games'. Most of the violence is heard off-screen or through the results which disturbingly makes your mind fill in the blanks. The central lull in proceedings actually becomes tense as you and the characters wait for the promised grisly end.
"Cherry Tree Lane" has many similarities to "Eden Lake" but it is clear that the director was very influenced by "Funny Games" and the way it was shot by Haneke. All of the action is restricted to the interior of the house at the fateful address, generating considerable claustrophobic. There is not on screen violence but it is still intense at times and sometimes difficult to watch, and it truly offers no respite by the end. The acting is very believable and the movie seems like a real event that anyone can go through in a routine and ordinary day.
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