Bee Season
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: November 11, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
16
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
58
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
The film ultimately is a letdown, leaving too many questions unanswered and ending in a gesture that doesn't really solve anything. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Ultimately, its success may depend on how emotionally satisfying audiences find this flirtation with Jewish mysticism. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
The film is ice cold, never finding a way to invite the viewer into the story, and Richard Gere doesn't convince as a Jewish biblical scholar. Read full review
50
Village VoiceJessica Winter
The mysticism only mystifies; its hieroglyphics are vividly rendered, but Bee Season never manages to spell them out. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
The attempt to be clever is transparent. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
Though bathed in ecclesiastical light and a work of obvious craft and ambition, Bee Season is grimly serious and rather full of itself. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Fine directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel take a detour into mumbo jumbo. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverMelissa Levine
This is inelegant storytelling, and it almost entirely cancels out what's good about the film: Max Minghella, for one thing. The son of director Anthony, he gives a very fresh performance, popping with energy that the other characters seem to drain. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Co-directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel, whose visual schemes lent a hypnotic aura to their previous collaborations -- "The Deep End" and "Suture" -- don't find the right balance of story and image this time. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
This well-meaning mistake gets lost in the metaphors. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Here the foundation has been miscast. That's M-I-S-C-A-S-T. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
A drama about dysfunction, spelling bees, mental illness, Hare Krishnas and kaballah. The movie is just as unwieldy as it sounds, except that it also stars Richard Gere. Read full review
50
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
All these mystical elements are so sententiously handled and bump into one another so clumsily that they make the film seem nutty. But because spirituality is the theme of Bee Season, we are obviously not meant to laugh at it. Well, I wish I could get Jehovah's reaction to the picture. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Everyone in Bee Season is chasing spiritual peace and falling behind, and McGehee and Siegel catch them at their most worn-out and static. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Myla Goldberg's novel about spelling-bee fever, a family in chaos, and religious/mystic exploration arrives on the screen with all its faults intact, but few of its charms. Read full review
40
EmpireSteve O'Hagan
Gloopy family drama meets Hollywood cod-spirituality in a movie that’s defeated by its over-ambitious scope. Read full review
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