Clara's Heart

Here is a bad movie into which a great character seems to have dropped from another dimension. Read full review

As directed by Robert Mulligan, the stately pace here feels sluggish and the music is no elegiac Pachelbel's "Canon" but a medley of dreadful cocktail lounge piano and swooning strings. [21 Oct 1988, p.G]

Whoopi Goldberg has a lot of heart; Neil Patrick Harris gives a sensitive performance as her young friend; and the supporting cast is solid. The screenplay is gushy, though, and director Robert Mulligan rarely tones it down. [14 Oct 1988, p.21]

All and all, it adds up to a delightful, unpretentious movie, hands down the richest work Whoopi Goldberg has done on the screen. Read full review

Whoopi Goldberg gives a first-rate performance in Clara's Heart, enough to atone for the sins of her Fatal Beauty period. But it's nifty work in a lost cause. The movie is sickly sweet, shot through with the kind of confectioner's sentiment that Hollywood used to crank out on assembly lines until the formula slid into disuse. [21 Oct 1988, p.E10]

The problem with Clara's Heart is that it grows increasingly sentimental and improbable. [16 Nov 1988, p.D05]

Clara's Heart is a warm movie with many lessons to tell, if one is willing to listen. Its force is aided by Goldberg's performance and a noteworthy movie debut of Neil Patrick Harris as David. [17 Oct 1988]

Directed by Robert Mulligan in an unapologetically sentimental style, Clara's Heart succeeds in tugging the heartstrings only when Clara herself is on screen. Read full review

Mulligan's adaptation of Joseph Olshan's novel doesn't merely flirt with pathos, it positively marries it. Read full review

Whoopi Goldberg here made her first stab at drama since her film debut in The Color Purple, and it's simply appalling. She's mawkishly maternal, and her patois is about as convincing as Lionel Richie's. Read full review

Buoyed by a beautifully measured star turn by Whoopi Goldberg and a smashing screen debut for young Neil Patrick Harris, Clara's Dream is a powerful, unabashedly sentimental drama. Read full review

Clara's Heart has several pluses. There's the rapport between Goldberg and Harris, impressive in his screen debut. And it is a relief to see Goldberg working back into The Color Purple mode. Read full review