Heaven
Miramax Films | Release Date: October 4, 2002 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Here the clinical, stopwatch precision of Mr. Tykwer's explorations of synchronicity and Kieslowski's warmer, metaphysically dreamy speculations about the role of chance and coincidence in human affairs synchronize into a film whose formal elegance is matched by its depth of feeling. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It's Tykwer's most assured picture to date, and like much of Kieslowski's best work it qualifies simultaneously as engrossing narrative and philosophical parable. Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Unusual, unexpected and strangely refreshing. For this movie to have resorted to a familiar action-flick finish with everything explained, pressed and dry-cleaned would have rendered it banal. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Mr. Tykwer's hands the movie changes almost magically from drama to chase to romance. As it does so its moral weight lessens; by the end there is less than what first engaged the mind. What meets the eye, though, is unforgettable.
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Odd, and awkward in places, but its lyricism and power stay with you. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
The result is both engrossing and moving, a poem about a love that breaks barriers and passes understanding. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
Not just love, but maybe an escape from a wretched world. We're not sure, but that's what makes Heaven so inexplicably, intriguingly soulful, even in its most remote and architectural instances. Read full review
80
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Tykwer's actors seem completely clued in to his intentions. Both Blanchett and Ribisi give performances so restrained they're almost subliminal. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Touching, transcendent love story. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
A mystical tale of two souls, joined in love but divided in society, seeking redemption and understanding before they pass to another plane. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
It's maddeningly chowderheaded, simplistic, pretentious, and not a little silly. You can't take your eyes off it. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Poetic in its sadness, and Blanchett's performance confirms her power once again. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The result is a beautifully designed, lyrical fable of a movie, full of God's-eye shots from on high, placing the characters against the Italian scenery and medieval architecture. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Tykwer doesn't aim for the heights of excitement and invention he reached in "Run Lola Run," but he blends an impressively varied palette of moods into an intriguingly unpredictable story that's never short of ideas. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Blanchett is riveting. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
If Heaven doesn't quite achieve the transcendent power that Kieslowski might have attained, it comes close. One shot in particular, with the couple making love under a tree in silhouette, is a thing of quiet, sublime beauty that is eloquent in a way words never could be. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Too bad Heaven creeps into town when it deserved more fanfare. Consider it buried treasure, a thriller for the art- house crowd. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyGrahm Robinson
The final product is so eccentric and resolutely uncommercial -- and so faithful to the spirit of Kieslowski's oeuvre -- that it's hard to doubt the purity of Tykwer's intentions. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
An art film without the NYFF imprimatur, Heaven is a peculiar amalgam -- a Miramax package (without the hype), directed by German hotshot Tom Tykwer under the eye of Anthony Minghella, from a script with which the late Krzysztof Kieslowski had planned to inaugurate a new trilogy named for the Divine Comedy. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Heaven's tone is all wrong. The movie tries to be ethereal, but ends up seeming goofy. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Heaven is so determined to be poetic and beautiful, it comes across as forced and didactic, a lesson in relative morality whose storyline doesn't so much flow as lurch from one stretch to another. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
With Heaven, Tykwer completes his self-appointment as Kieslowski's heir apparent, but since he has always been a better filmmaker than a thinker, his ideas drift into the ether. Read full review
60
VarietyDerek Elley
Sports a lustrous performance by Cate Blanchett that gives the movie much of its final sheen but still can't keep it on the rails as the already flimsy story starts to disintegrate in the final act. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
A great deal of energy is expended on metaphysical ruminations that become ever fuzzier. The film is intended as an allegory, but it works best as a jailbreak romance. In this movie, lowbrow trumps highbrow every time. Read full review
50
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Turns out to be an exercise in flatulent pretension, puffed up with a bogus, empty "spirituality" and dependent on a plot filled with implausibilities. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The conclusion, clearly meant to feel ambiguously poetic, is distinctly unsatisfying. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
Isn't a bad movie by conventional standards, just a boring one. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
Heaven is saved only by the power of an occasional hypnotic image. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Further sad evidence that Tom Tykwer, director of the resonant and sense-spinning ''Run Lola Run,'' has turned out to be a one-trick pony -- a maker of softheaded metaphysical claptrap. It's enough to make you want to see him run again. Read full review
40
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
It's a mannered, precious exercise that seems to have less to do with lived moral dilemmas than with the smug piety of its makers. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Doesn't have the courage of its conceit, only an abundance of bad ideas and worse taste. Read full review
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