Crazy in Alabama

Columbia Pictures | Release Date: October 22, 1999

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

45	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews

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Mixed:

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Critic Reviews

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Steve Davis

There's much to enjoy here as long as your expectations aren't too high. Read full review

Jay Carr

The pieces don't always fit together smoothly, but there's a lot of flavorful work to savor. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

Tries with intermittent success to juggle two stories. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Takes a while to arrive at what it has to say, but some of the performances kept me occupied in the meantime. Read full review

Roger Ebert

An ungainly fit of three stories that have no business being shoehorned into the same movie. Read full review

Marc Caro

Although Banderas occasionally shows flashes of style, individual elements too often go together like grits in a puff pastry. Read full review

Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson

Feels like two films that aren't closely related enough, either tonally or narratively, to warrant their intertwining. Read full review

Steve Daly

As campy as a flick by Banderas' evident artistic mentor, Pedro Almódovar. Read full review

Film.comMoira Macdonald

Appears to be several different movies spliced together, with unfortunate results. Read full review

Film.comJohn Hartl

An Almodovar-like blend of laughs, drama and uplift, filled with the kinds of pop-art colors and pop-out performances that Almodovar loves. Read full review

Nicole Campos

The two disparate yet thematically linked storylines are far too faithfully transposed for a feature-length treatment -- crammed together, they're denied the space to flesh out as a cohesive whole. Read full review

Kevin Thomas

The juxtaposition of grim reality and pure fantasy doesn't work...the entire film seem artificial and contrived. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

Inadvertently does with the civil rights movement exactly what Banderas set out not to do: trivializes it.

Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard

Banderas may have been crazy to make such a heady directorial debut, but it's hard not to be charmed by his ambitions.

Jami Bernard

Mismatch of tone and material. Read full review

Lou Lumenick

Risks trivializing history and pandering to feminist fantasies, but it may be the year's most fearless movie.

Shawn Levy

Banderas' direction is a bit of everything and a lot of not much.

Peter Travers

Somehow, Lucille's plight is meant to comment astutely on the civil-rights movement. Now that IS crazy.

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Disappoints with its simplistic, hollow narrative and characters. Read full review

Peter Stack

It's troubling to watch it stray and ramble as first-time director Antonio Banderas struggles to pull disparate elements together. Read full review

Paula Nechak

Funny, eccentric and touchingly just, combining a unique interpretation of the time with an offbeat sense of humor. Read full review

Janet Maslin

Banderas directs capably enough to keep the film lively. Read full review

TNT RoughCutSjohnna McCray

Banderas has taken a brilliant novel and made a small movie with lots of bright moments, and honestly, that's quite an accomplishment for his debut.

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

(Griffith's) appearance often verges on the grotesque. Which, come to think of it, could be said of the movie as well. Read full review

Mike Clark

Were some group to launch a rival to the Oscars called The Wackys, it could do worse than make crazed Crazy its first recipient.

Todd McCarthy

The opposition of the two dramas winds up in gratifyingly moral and philosophical territory. Read full review

Rita Kempley

Mark Childress, who wrote the screenplay based upon his book of the same name, would have been better off leaving this Southern Gothic between two covers. Read full review