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
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The performance by Flora Cross is haunting in its seriousness. She doesn't act out; she acts in. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Sometimes a movie can defy rational logic, yet still make sense emotionally in a way that pulls you through. Bee Season is one. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
With the help of clear direction and some excellent acting, especially from Flora Cross in a memorable debut as Eliza, Bee Season is affecting in ways that movies have all but given up trying to be. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Bee Season, at its core, is about something powerful: The ways in which family members wreak destruction on each other with the best of intentions. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Based on the captivating novel by Myla Goldberg, Bee Season is evocative and superbly acted. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
One isn't quite ready to forgive the miscasting of Gere, however, who is about as convincing a Kabbalistic scholar as Madonna. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Bee Season is lit by human sunbeam Flora Cross as Eliza. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderMeredith Brody
The directors exercise their stylistic flourishes mainly in the imaginative sequences depicting the young daughter's trancelike state while she conjures up the correct orthography in the spelling bees her father's determined she must win, and while the film observes the same heartbreaking obsessiveness as the popular "Spellbound," it has none of that documentary's cuteness. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
McGehee and Siegel's ornate structure and editing stay just this side of tricky, as does their borderline-goofy use of special effects to make us see the world (and the words) through Eliza's anxious eyes. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
A serious film filled with both great and awkward ideas and made as much from the heart as the head. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
For a film filled with jagged shards of glass, and sometimes shot kaleidoscopically, through the windows of houses or cars, Bee Season is carefully, almost relentlessly, intended. That said, the script, by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, touches on themes that rarely make it to the big screen.
67
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Bee Season answers the question no Talmudic student or fan of "Unfaithful" has thought to ask: What would Richard Gere look like as a learned Jewish scholar and teacher? Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
There's no shortage of material on the screen in Bee Season - it's just not assembled in a satisfying manner. Read full review
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