A Walk in the Clouds

A glorious romantic fantasy, aflame with passion and bittersweet longing. Read full review

Arau's style is an aphrodisiac at 24 frames per second. [11 Aug 1995, p.2B]

A lovely, sprawling romance that turns out to be as much a success story for Keanu Reeves, as he matures into stardom, as it is for Mexican director Alfonso Arau, who proves equal to his first big Hollywood budget. [11 Aug 1995, p.B2]

The fuzziness is suddenly and definitely gone, and Reeves emerges as a mature, charismatic movie star. Read full review

The enchanting A Walk in the Clouds glows in the luminous tones of a fondly remembered tale, like an old bit of nostalgia your grandfather might have recounted on a clear-skied summer night. It's sweet and decorous and familiar -- you'll be able to map out the plot 15 minutes into it -- but even that works in the movie's favor. It gives predictability a good name. [11 Aug 1995, p.5G]

With a distractingly cute Quinn, a cartoonishly stern Giannini and woozily romantic Reeves and Sanchez-Gijon, this movie is overflowing with ditsy good will. But it just won't be everyone's cup of Chardonnay. Read full review

The most disconcerting thing about A Walk in the Clouds' tendency towards overt melodrama is that almost all of it is totally unnecessary. Minor script changes could have eliminated huge chunks of this, leaving behind an uplifting love story. Even as it is, however, there's still something special about the motion picture. I just wish the final half-hour hadn't been such a bloated disappointment. Read full review

It's a lyrical, gorgeous, big-budget follow-up to "Like Water for Chocolate," and it's easy to take. It's easier still to fall in with the movie's openheartedness, its generosity of spirit. [11 Aug 1995, p.45]

This is a movie where you can get drunk on the B2], sloshed on the scenery. But perhaps not quite drunk enough. [11 Aug 1995, p.C2]

Half as interesting as a rerun of Falcon Crest and twice as long. Read full review

A Walk in the Clouds does have its problems, but it looks good enough to eat. [11 Aug 1995]

With (Keanu's) stiff body language and wooden delivery, his every word falls like drops of flat Diet Coke rather than intoxicating wine. Read full review

Take this walk for the appetizing scenery, which includes Reeves and Sanchez-Gijon. The rest deserves squashing. Read full review

Aa glossy, fairy-tale romance that's longer on wishfulness than believability. Read full review

Like its star, Keanu Reeves, A Walk in the Clouds is a gorgeous airhead. Read full review

Reeves sticks out like a bad grape in an otherwise acceptable harvest. Having taken this role to broaden his acting horizons, his gain is the film's loss. Read full review

With its themes of family tradition, heated passion and parent-daughter conflict - not to mention lots of splendid preparing-the-meals sequences in the Aragon kitchen, and not to mention the contents of Keanu's case - A Walk in the Clouds could just as easily been called Like Wine for Chocolate. But anyone hoping for a second helping of the sensual romance of Like Water for Chocolate will come away disappointed. The movie's glinting incandescence is oppressive. [11 Aug 1995, p.14]

A Walk in the Clouds suffers from an inferiority complex. This familial fable, rife with biblical references, overcompensates for its simplicity in story with aspirations of visual grandeur. [11 Aug 1995, p.E1]

CLICHE - in words, music and pictures - soars to new heights in A Walk in the Clouds. [11 Aug 1995, p.3E]

In the wine-drenched romance A Walk in the Clouds, Keanu Reeves is like a flat root beer. Decent, honest, but no fizz. [11 Aug 1995, p.4D]

Pretty as a picture, but emptyheaded as hell. Read full review

Here, instead, is Keanu Reeves in one of his off roles, sleepwalking dutifully but seeming to share the audience's bewilderment over how he wound up in this awkward, slow-moving story. Read full review

Alfonso Arau's romantic fable A Walk in the Clouds is so confounding a miscalculation that its every development causes your jaw to drop in sheer amazement. Read full review

A Walk in the Clouds might have been helped by a more charismatic starring couple. They lack the character to stand up to such veteran scenery chompers as Quinn and Giannini. Instead, Reeves and Sanchez-Gijon seem like quivering Bambis in a lion's den. [11 Aug 1995, p.37]

This is shameless stuff: happy, barefoot peasants sing that traditional Latin cancion, 'Crush the grapes, crush the grapes,' the moonlight is so strong you could get burned, and the metaphors are writ large as tabloid headlines. Read full review

A phenomenally atrocious movie—so bad, in fact, that you might actually manage to squeeze a few laughs out of it. Read full review