Heading South
Shadow Distribution | Release Date: July 7, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Film ThreatPhil Hall
Cantet weaves a dark, disturbing story of hedonism, casual racism and the lethal consequences of self-indulgence in his superb drama Heading South. Read full review
100
The New York TimesStephen Holden
A beautifully written, seamlessly directed film with award-worthy performances by Ms. Rampling and Ms. Young. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Heading South is a hydra-headed love story, as dangerous as it is heated and complex. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
A pleasurably unsettling, sunbaked tale of sex and politics set in late-1970s Haiti. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Director Laurent Cantet's fourth feature abandons the contentious French workplaces of "Human Resources" and "Time Out" for sunnier climes, but this Haitian idyll is an equally excoriating look at labor and exploitation. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle Smith
The movie itself is a powerful cocktail of not just sex and love but race, poverty, colonialism and jealousy. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Boasts another formidable and fine-tuned performance from the great Charlotte Rampling. Read full review
80
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Heading South is a seemingly straightforward and simple picture that's really defiantly complex, sexually, politically and emotionally. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Laurent Cantet's fascinating, troubling drama has many meanings.
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
In its way, the film is a piercing indictment, though it makes its point without much screaming, hectoring or preening. It's quietly terrific. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Evocative and disturbing. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
The racial and sexual politics of Heading South may trouble some audiences; Cantet is definitely not a moralist in the usual sense. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The film offers something unusual, a tragic spectacle of normal, recognizable and utterly sympathetic people condemning themselves. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Heading South is strong in bursts, but the bursts are too diffuse for its best moments to last. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The film tackles more than it can master, but it's never less than fascinating, and all three leads are exceptional. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
An intelligent movie, not so much salacious as affecting but ultimately less analytical than overwrought, Heading South makes its points in the first 20 minutes. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
An absorbing extension of Cantet's abiding obsession with the seeding of political inequality in intimate relations. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
If only Cantet and Robin Campillo (who based their screenplay on stories by Dany Lafèrriere) had balanced the sexual and political elements more acutely, the result could have been searing. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Provocative and prodding, but apart from its queen bee Ellen (the marvelous Rampling), the characters are representational types instead of fleshed-out human beings. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Cantet does something that educated, upscale audiences may find exasperating in the extreme: He takes a tinderbox of racial and sexual exploitation, pours gasoline all over it, and refuses to light the match. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Cantet keeps a lid on a story that he could have easily exploited, but he makes his points about beauty, fulfillment, self-indulgence and delusion with a measured hand. Read full review
60
VarietyJay Weissberg
Cantet's anticipated follow-up to "Time Out" supplants that pic's important issues with unexamined attitudes toward sex and the tropics. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Lonely, bitter, insecure and clearly unstable, the women are meant to level the emotional playing field and add depth to what is, at heart, a story about the exploitation of poor nations by rich and powerful ones. But they wind up being too bitter and unstable to elicit much sympathy. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Heading South's gender politics keep the movie from being too simple, since these women's self-indulgence can be read as a kind of unfettered (and even laudable) feminism, instead of just unintentional racism. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Among the creepiest adult monologues you'll hear in a regular theater this year comes from Karen Young in Heading South, a well-acted but misguided tale of displaced sexual longing on the beaches of Baby Doc Duvalier's 1970s Haiti. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerBill White
Rampling is fascinating as Ellen, the aging romantic who hardens her vulnerability with a materialist philosophy regarding the buying and selling of sex. The other two actresses give more superficial performances, with Young totally unconvincing as a Southern neurotic. Read full review
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