Ararat
Miramax Films | Release Date: November 15, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
10
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
As ever, Egoyan assembles a devoted repertory cast, including Christopher Plummer. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Ararat is less about history than the necessity of dialogue and debate, and the devastating effects of stifling dialogue. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Expresses with uncommon power the highly relevant issue of public indifference to genocide, which is especially well dramatized by a scene with Elias Koteas as an actor playing a Turk. Read full review
80
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Until its final moments this almost great movie feels as if it's racing against itself in a neck-and-neck battle between its troubled heart and its egg-shaped head. The heart wins by a nose. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
This is a heartfelt piece, and while passion alone can't carry a movie, it sure helps. Ararat is uneven because Egoyan couldn't tell it smoothly. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
This toweringly ambitious picture confronts a brilliant director, Atom Egoyan, with a major historical event and a profound theme. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
The resulting project matters much and should be seen, but how much it'll be FELT depends on your specific level of patience for a director who presumes audience comprehension to be at about a fourth-grade level (at least he's a shoo-in for Hollywood). Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Egoyan's oblique, layered attack ultimately pays off, evoking a strong emotional connection between past and present, the historical and the personal, in a flowing, cinematic manner in collaboration with his frequent cameraman, Paul Sarossy. The film makes use of an intoxicating array of Armenian music. Read full review
70
Film ThreatDavid Grove
Ararat isn't a great film because it's too convoluted and personal at times, but it's a showcase of technical mastery; the way Egoyan interweaves the stories of the historical recreation, the relationship between the son and his stepsister and the mystery of the art historian's dead husbands, is endlessly compelling. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
We only experience the horror of the genocide through several layers of artifice -- first Saroyan's, then Egoyan's own -- a sad acknowledgement that with each story told, we're drawn that much further from the truth. Read full review
63
USA TodayMike Clark
Has its moments -- and almost as many subplots. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Perhaps this movie was so close to Egoyan's heart that he was never able to stand back and get a good perspective on it -- that he is as conflicted as his characters, and as confused in the face of shifting points of view. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Whatever the reason, the characters often seem only half-formed and there's a strange artificiality about the entire endeavor. Egoyan has never been a realist, and his style has contributed to his ability to deliver a knockout punch. Here, that punch is missing. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The screenplay's intelligence begins to break down in Egoyan's formal choices. Ideas never elude Egoyan, but boy does Saroyan's epic look uncertain and cruddy. Read full review
63
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Egoyan treats the Armenian genocide and its aftermath as a metaphor for cruelty and denial -- an exercise in either pretension or timidity that exploits this tragedy. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Though typically engaging, Ararat occasionally suffers from what's previously been a virtue in Egoyan's filmmaking. His distancing techniques, rather than sharpening his ability to deal with a subject that lends itself to high emotion -- sometimes just seem distancing. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Egoyan's pedantic, lecturing approach makes the film a bit of a slog, although the basic material has an intrinsic interest that makes one at least want to know more about the historical events. Read full review
60
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Doesn't connect with its audience in the one place that matters most: the heart. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyJon Strickland
Egoyan has always constructed dense ensemble films, and here again the writer-director hopes to reinforce his themes by piling layer upon layer of character. Unfortunately, the layers end up cluttering the story. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
An impressive work in many regards -- the acting, the photography, the pace -- but it would've been even more so had Egoyan gone with his gut and been less indulgent of his brain. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Egoyan is one of Canada's most ambitious and original filmmakers, but the power of this intricate drama falls short of its aspirations, despite his personal investment in the subject, since he is of Armenian ancestry himself. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Only two hours long but it may take your mind another day to get through it. Egoyan has stuffed a lot into this personal and strenuously opaque film, which perhaps explains why its over-plotted, elliptical structure seems so onerous. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
If I were a Turkish official, I would not be too worried by this picture. Nothing so slippery can stir up indignation. [18 November 2002, p. 104]
50
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
All in the cast are competent, and some of the slaughter scenes make us ache, but the overlaid material does not enrich, it impedes. Read full review
50
Village VoiceDennis Lim
If the movie feels cumbersome and overstuffed, it's because Egoyan's characters, so often aphasic, are this time driven by a compulsion to speak -- though the noisy tumble of words mostly underscores their failure to communicate. Read full review
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