Ordinary Love
Bleecker Street Media | Release Date: February 14, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
3
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 25, 2021
I hated this film. I hated every minute of it, and at times it even made me angry. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMar 7, 2020
Neeson, freed from the straight-jacket that too many action films have slapped on him, gives Tom a stoic, crusty vulnerability that comes out in every line, post-diagnosis. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesFeb 26, 2020
Neeson, taking a welcome break from his late-career reinvention as a man of action, and Manville (Another Year, Phantom Thread) are such gifted performers, and they play this couple – their tenderness and stress – at a likably subtle frequency. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 26, 2020
Ordinary Love gets everything right, but there’s almost nothing in the way of a major plot revelation or insightful flashback explaining certain elements from the past. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Johanna SchnellerFeb 20, 2020
Here’s the thing: Joan and Tom do come back from it. The couples who stay together figure out how to do that. Ordinary Love is an argument that, as hard as that is, it’s worth it. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicElizabeth MontgomeryFeb 19, 2020
Ordinary Love is not a movie solely about cancer. It is a raw, on-screen adaptation of what hundreds of couples experience when their limits are tested — physically, mentally and romantically. This film, like the love these couples have for one another, will stand the test the time. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 19, 2020
Cancer dramas are not uncommon; what lifts Ordinary Love just enough out of the ordinary is its concern with how a married couple survives the ordeal. Intimate, unsparing, and attuned to the micro-nuances of a longtime relationship, it is made special by the two actors at its center, both out-size talents who here relish the opportunity to play close and draw from life. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanFeb 18, 2020
The point being: Even when questions of life and death loom large, someone still has to make dinner. That observation doesn’t make Ordinary Love a major motion picture event. But it does, in its own quiet, wise way, nudge it just a little bit closer to the extraordinary. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedFeb 14, 2020
Well-crafted, potently written and beautifully acted. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichFeb 14, 2020
While Ordinary Love is so hermetically sealed inside the bubble of its cracking relationship that the film always feels like it’s about to suffocate to death, it’s so attuned to the meniscus of a “healthy” marriage that it remains touching even at its most inert. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comNell MinowFeb 14, 2020
There is nothing ordinary about Tom and Joan, and their story shows us that there is nothing ordinary about love. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 13, 2020
Everything Joan and Tom go through is handled believably, but with blinkers on. Their surrounding lives feel grey and pencilled in, as if by all-round agreement to deny them any colour. Read full review
70
Film ThreatAlan NgFeb 13, 2020
The best cure for a bland movie is quality ingredients, and in this case, it’s Manville and Neeson’s performances. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 13, 2020
Because Manville and Neeson are such potent performers, they are expert at playing out all the implications of what this experience is like. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottFeb 13, 2020
It almost works, but as persuasive as the performers can be, Tom and Joan seem less real the more time you spend with them. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 13, 2020
The film’s strength lies in the performances — two fine actors elevating their roles from the touchingly mundane to the suddenly momentous. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubVikram MurthiFeb 12, 2020
Despite their best efforts, Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville can’t rescue Ordinary Love, a bland drama about a late-middle-aged couple grappling with a cancer diagnosis. Read full review
88
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeFeb 11, 2020
Ultimately, Ordinary Love is a celebration not just of this functional, delightfully average relationship, but also of life itself, risking and wrestling with loss not in spite of the fact it’s shared with others, but precisely because of that fact. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 22, 2020
Ignore the unassuming title: Ordinary Love is a love story that is extraordinary. Read full review
100
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeDec 10, 2019
Directed with wit, subtlety and great emotional honesty by Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn (the co-directors of 2012’s brilliantly life-affirming Good Vibrations), it’s a singular story with universal appeal – striking a very personal chord with some viewers while finding common ground with the widest possible audience. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerDec 3, 2019
Anchored by great performances from Liam Neeson and especially Lesley Manville, Ordinary Love is alive to the feelings and moments other hospital dramas overlook. Its accumulation of details form a shattering whole. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawSep 14, 2019
There are, arguably, scenes in this film which are less than subtle – and there were times when I wanted something more indirect. But Manville and Neeson have a real empathy and intimacy on screen. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinSep 13, 2019
As quiet and thoughtfully composed as a Dutch master's painting, Ordinary Love uses clean lines and well observed tiny details to build up a deeply moving, nuanced portrait of a marriage under strain after a cancer diagnosis. Read full review
80
Screen DailyWendy IdeSep 13, 2019
An achingly intimate portrait of a marriage weathering a storm ... what shines is the combination of Owen McCafferty’s stingingly honest screenplay and the two lovely, emotionally textured central performances. Read full review
70
VarietyAmy NicholsonSep 13, 2019
David Holmes and Brian Irvine’s score is melodic and insistent, and it knows when to fall away into silence to let the audience appreciate Neeson and Manville’s superb chemistry. Read full review
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