Simon & the Oaks
Film Arcade | Release Date: October 12, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
8
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesDavid DeWittOct 12, 2012
With its exhilarating World War II narrative and performances that touch notes intimate and grand, Simon and the Oaks has an exquisite, and epic, ache. Read full review
88
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanOct 26, 2012
Simon and the Oaks is not merely the story of two boys from opposite sides of the tracks. It's also a larger meditation on life's hardships and what endures: love, art and civilization. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertOct 17, 2012
It is unabashedly sentimental and epic, and rather bold in the way it takes place during and after the Holocaust but is not defined by it. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 18, 2012
A two-hour theatrical feature that has the kind of emotional and storytelling reach regularly found these days only in cable TV miniseries. It's a warmly done family and personal drama that seems to cover familiar territory, but only up to a point and very much in its own way. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineDiego SemereneOct 10, 2012
The film is at its best when it lingers on intimacy and the characters' incompetency to manage it. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeOct 10, 2012
Alternates languidly between wistful nostalgia and a more clear-eyed assessment of its protagonist's choices. Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearOct 10, 2012
The film never finds the right mix of the epic and the intimate - the personal as seen through the 20th century's Euro-geopolitical turmoil - that it aims for. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsOct 26, 2012
It's as if there's a missing reel of film that could tie the story together and give it the emotional impact it takes for granted. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoOct 20, 2012
It's a sumptuously mounted melodrama that aims to make a big statement about big themes, but a stilted quality in the filmmaking drags it down. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubAlison WillmoreOct 17, 2012
Ponderous and heavy with its own importance, Simon And The Oaks is the kind of film that's made for awards - it nabbed 13 nominations in Sweden's equivalent of the Oscars last year. Read full review
50
New York PostV.A. MusettoOct 11, 2012
The classical music is soothing, the cinematography handsome and the acting strong, but the Swedish coming-of-age saga Simon and the Oaks is burdened with a sappy, soap-opera-ish script. Read full review
50
NPRElla TaylorOct 11, 2012
Worst of all is the hitching of all this extravagant suffering to an inspirational ending filled with sweet regret, healing hope and some picturesque nestling in the titular oaks with the next generation. Read full review
50
VarietyRonnie ScheibOct 10, 2012
Though it retains the narrative complexity of the Swedish bestseller on which it's based, WWII saga Simon and the Oaks never creates an emotional or intellectual throughline of its own. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichael NordineOct 10, 2012
Lisa Ohlin's Simon and the Oaks has all the superficial elements of compelling drama but none of the interiority; it looks like a good movie without ever actually feeling like one. Read full review
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