Facing Windows
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: June 18, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
13
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
Istanbul-born director Ferzan Ozpetek has outdone himself with this wise and ruminative mystery about memory, unfulfillment and yearning. Read full review
90
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Ozpetek is an enriching director. More than a presentation of its contents, every scene seems also to be a distillation of the matters that led to it. He can take a somewhat worn device--moving the camera around his people as they talk--and make it savory. Read full review
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The film is slick, beautifully acted and completely entrancing. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Gentle and life-affirming, if too sentimental in the end. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
Poignant and carefully observed, the Italian drama Facing Windows portrays two consuming, illicit romances: one in the present, the other kept alive in faulty memory. The long-ago relationship holds far more intrigue. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Girotti is especially evocative, his face an alternating current that switches from emptiness to alarm and back again. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Ozpetek brings a straight love story and world politics into the mix, but it's his brilliant cast which completes the connection. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Facing Windows is rich stuff. Maybe too rich. But thanks to fine performances and a grounded script, the pieces of this intriguing little puzzle all manage to fit. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Some lovely photography and even Mezzogiorno's hot-blooded performance fail to keep Facing Windows from feeling fractured. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Ozpetek moves things along at a snail's pace and lays the sentiment down thickly. But it's a potent tale, wonderfully acted by Mezzogiorno and Massimo Girotti as the old man. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Blends history and mystery into an entertaining, if somewhat slight, romance. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Far from a simple, feel-good story of self-discovery, Facing Windows delivers a challenging examination of loneliness and human interaction. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Despite its surreal touches and an improbable story that piles on the metaphors, the movie, which has a rich, honey-dripping score by Andrea Guerra, maintains a tone of refined heart-tugging realism. Read full review
60
Washington PostDesson Thomson
There's something diverting but not wildly stirring about this Italian drama. Read full review
60
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Gets a little soapy, but the dismal working-class milieu and the measured performances by Mezzogiorno and Girotti (a venerable Italian actor who died last year ) bolster the sense of solidity. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Probably best skipped - unless you have a penchant for shallow, "comfortable" foreign films that offer obvious messages and never attempt to challenge the viewer. Read full review
50
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Gets off to a worthy start, but falls apart about halfway through. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Beautiful to look at and acted with full and tempestuous conviction, it still seems to be taking place in an apartment far across the way. Read full review
40
VarietyDeborah Young
Only partially succeeds in interweaving questions of family loyalty with historical memory and the fate of Italian Jews in WW2. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
Structurally, it's ambitious, but emotionally the movie never quite connects, spending so much time laboring over its parallel storytelling and its cosmic connections that the characters remain at arm's length, as intangible as reflections in glass. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterRichard James Havis
This too-sentimental drama does feature a sterling performance by Giovanna Mezzogiorno as a love-struck housewife dissatisfied with her lot, thus providing the only watchable element of an otherwise disappointing movie. Read full review
40
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Girotti has no magical powers, but his dementia has a way of coming and going at just the right time to move the story and themes wherever director Ferzan Ozpetek and co-writer Gianni Romoli want them to go. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
Stuck somewhere between melodrama and the flat tone of an "issues"-oriented television miniseries. Read full review
30
Village VoiceJessica Winter
Blends past and present to draw some utterly stupefying parallels. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
There's way too much schmaltz in the mix. Even the musical score bombs: Throbbing, eerie techno simply does not suit a character trapped in the 1940s. Read full review
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