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Critics Consensus: Effie Gray benefits from its strong cast, elevating a period drama that doesn't strike quite as many narrative sparks as it could.
Critic Consensus: Effie Gray benefits from its strong cast, elevating a period drama that doesn't strike quite as many narrative sparks as it could.
All Critics (80) | Top Critics (28) | Fresh (33) | Rotten (47)
It's deadly dull, clogged with all kinds of string and piano music and sunk by a perplexingly lifeless performance by Dakota Fanning as Gray.
Fanning's controlled presence is ideal for a tale of Victorian repression. But as the film becomes one of quiet liberation, it needs more than her cool reserve.
...attractively shot, appealingly acted, and decorously eye-opening.
Wise, who is noticeably older than the 29-year-old Ruskin was at the time the events occurred in real life, gives a tense, implacable performance, and Fanning is touching. The movie, however, directed by Richard Laxton, could use a lot more oomph.
"Effie Gray" runs 108 minutes, yet it feels like it ends right before the real drama is about to begin.
With a script by Emma Thompson, you might expect Effie Gray to have the same period-piece poignancy as her 1995 take on Sense and Sensibility. No such luck.
Dakota Fanning uses her expressive eyes to portray Effie's inner turmoil and misery and we immediately feel with her.
This is the worst period drama of the year, and the whole cast know it.
Thompson seems to have intended a feminist parable, but it's hard to believe she couldn't have come up with a better vehicle.
The film should come alive, but it just lies there, handsomely shot but dramatically inert.
Effie Gray begins like a fairy tale, before morphing into something richer, more complex, more feminist
Everything about this potentially vibrant period drama is a washed-out watercolor.
Dakota Fanning stars as Effie Gray in this dramatic period film about a wife's struggle to build a marriage. The story follows a young woman who, after marrying an acclaimed novelist, finds herself being kept at a distance and treated as a burden by her husband and his family despite her best efforts to be a dutiful wife. Fanning gives a good performance and does an impressive job at depicting the desperation of the character to find her place in society. But unfortunately, the plot is slow paced and meanders a lot; which, while effectively shows the character's plight, kills much of the film's momentum. Yet despite its problems, on the whole Effie Gray is a fairly compelling character drama.
Super Reviewer
Some nice scenery and decent acting but moves at a snails pace.
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