Fugitive Pieces.

"Image, like identity, is always coming into focus throughout Fugitive Pieces," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "Conventionally shot but artfully cut, Jeremy Podeswa's film, based on a novel by Anne Michaels, toggles back and forth in time, honing in on the nervous psychological headspace of its main character, Jakob Beer, who escapes from the clutches of the Nazis during WWII with the help of a Greek gentleman and grows up to become a great writer."

In the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis finds Podeswa "disinclined to dawdle, juggling three decades and as many countries with a sure hand and an eye for candy."

"Podeswa hollows out the novel's urgency in favor of a vaguely spiritual morbidity," writes Ella Taylor in the Voice.

"Fugitive Pieces is a lush-looking film, and the changes Dillane goes through are touching and even uplifting - but those payoffs come late, and only after a lot of quiet, torturous soul-searching that doesn't convey well onscreen," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club. "There's very little dynamic to the film."

For Steve Dollar, writing in the New York Sun, this "is the kind of overwrought trudge through the dark corridors of modern history that is usually better viewed as a cable miniseries. At least you can take a break."

Earlier: Reviews from Toronto.

Posted by dwhudson at May 2, 2008 1:43 PM