Late Marriage

Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: May 17, 2002

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

82	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 26 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Kevin Thomas

Late Marriage will assuredly rank as one of the cleverest, most deceptively amusing comedies of the year. Read full review

100

David Sterritt

The acting is superb, the filmmaking is imaginative, and the story never goes quite where you expect. Read full review

100

Peter Rainer

So intimate and sensual and funny and psychologically self-revealing that it makes most of what passes for sex in the movies look like cheap hysterics. Read full review

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Watch for the director's own mother, Lili Kosashvili, a standout as Zaza's fierce, stately mama. Read full review

Anthony Lane

The most fruitful twist in Late Marriage is that at its core lies not a snippy domestic farce but a prolonged, dirty, and wholly credible sex scene, which starts and stops and starts again, and in which argument and arousal are entwined like limbs. [27 May 2002, p.124]

Desson Thomson

A canny (and profoundly sexy) movie. Read full review

Stephen Holden

Powerful and very bitter comedy. Read full review

Marrit Ingman

The overall execution add up to a film of beautiful, ultimately heartbreaking honesty. Read full review

Michael Sragow

Until the final shot, the movie keeps you wondering how it will turn out.

John Petrakis

One of those welcome visitors, a movie that turns out to be much more than we expected. Read full review

Kim Morgan

Doesn't give off the same happy feel of the Indian arranged-marriage movie "Monsoon Wedding." Rather, it poses hard questions and leaves them unanswered.

Ann Hornaday

Late Marriage is a closely observed, somewhat funny, ultimately very sad movie. Read full review

J. Hoberman

Kosashvili's camera is restrained, the better to render Late Marriage superbly brash, raunchy, and confrontational. Read full review

Scott Tobias

A daring and immediate debut feature for Koshashvili, Late Marriage could lead two likeminded people to opposite conclusions, and that may be its greatest strength. Read full review

Ted Shen

Despite its farcical moments, Late Marriage leaves an aftertaste as sobering as other recent films that critique cultural conservatives in the Middle East. Read full review

Lisa Nesselson

As wrenching as it is funny. Read full review

Roger Ebert

The most important sequence in Late Marriage is a refreshingly frank sex scene involving Zaza and Judith. -- Watching this scene, we realize that most sex scenes in the movies play like auditions. Read full review

Lawrence Toppman

If you used this guy's umbilical cord for fishing line, you could land a world-record marlin. Read full review

Megan Lehmann

Kosashvili's clear-eyed approach to the cultural tradition of arranged marriage balances respect and scorn, and he reconciles the comedy and tragedy inherent in Zaza's tug-of-love with finesse. Read full review

Elizabeth Weitzman

Whether this smart, sexy and unsparing film is a hilarious comedy or a poignant drama is a matter of personal opinion — and experience. But if you've ever felt both baffled and blessed by your own family, this "Marriage" is one event you won't want to miss.

Edward Guthmann

A stunning directing debut -- is anything but sentimental about old- country customs. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineKen Fox

This superbly played film, directed with remarkable skill for a first-time feature filmmaker, is truly an adult drama. Read full review

New Times (L.A.)Robert Wilonsky

A remarkable movie with an unsatisfying ending, which is just the point.

Ella Taylor

Late Marriage, though hardly dispassionate, assiduously avoids passing judgment on any of its characters, all of whom are desperately trying to bend the world into conformity with their own narratives and superstitions. Read full review

Rick Groen

Up and down, Late Marriage is definitely rocky, but there's never a point where we lose interest and want out -- as relationships go, that's not bad. Read full review

Connie Ogle

Late Marriage's stiffness is unlikely to demonstrate the emotional clout to sweep U.S. viewers off their feet. Read full review