Strayed
Wellspring Media | Release Date: May 14, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
4
Negative:
1

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Once in a great while a film seems right in every detail. Andre Techine's Strayed ("Les Egares") is such a film.
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
André Téchiné's beautifully ambiguous, exquisitely underplayed drama Strayed has less to do with the events and moral choices of the era that continue to shape French identity than with the timeless psychological effects of finding oneself unmoored from the familiar. Read full review
90
VarietyDavid Stratton
A taut, suspenseful, linear approach, and a trio of excellent performances. Read full review
90
Village VoiceDennis Lim
As with Téchiné's best work, Strayed is a peculiar, lingering blend of robustness and delicacy--a movie with hardly a single wasted frame, incongruous word, or false gesture. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
What makes this film special, as in his other films, is the getting there. Téchiné is the master of subtle shifts in mood, an acute delineator of psychological interplay, and therefore demands the utmost of his actors. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Téchiné gets deep inside the dread and exhilaration of people who have lost their bearings so suddenly they don't even have the luxury of grief. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Schickel
Elegant and understated. Read full review
80
The New York TimesStephen Holden
It begins with a montage of devastating black-and-white news clips interwoven with flashes of the flight of a terrified young widow and her two children. After that, the movie softens somewhat, but it never succumbs to sentimentality. Read full review
80
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Strayed has the strange clarity of a fable. It strips everything away until only instincts and emotions are left. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The story is dramatic and Béart gives one of her best performances, even if Téchiné's style has its usual sense of distance. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Hardship and suffering don't drive this movie so much as a romantic's gloss on the two. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
Techine's terrifying setup quickly gives way to a slower and less explicit suspense, in which every step and spoken word is heavy with intrigue. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Béart, too beautiful for words, brings a complex swirl of emotions, elegantly restrained and marked with pain, to this finely wrought work. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Begins and ends with facts of war, but it is really a film about the nature of male and female, about middle-class values and those who cannot afford them, about how helpless we can be when the net of society is broken. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
A disturbing drama about the dehumanizing and humiliating effects of war. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
War may set the stage for Strayed, but the film's real focus is something much quieter and internal: People caught in the throes of a transformation that is not of their making and struggling to adapt. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Long expert at unforgettable characterizations, Techine turns his talents toward creating an evocative sense of time and mood. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Téchiné has a reputation in France as an especially empathic director of women--Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche among them--and he has understood this Odile very well. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Strayed moves forward with an absorbing ruthlessness, yet without sacrificing those tiny incidental details that lend it singularity and power. Read full review
70
SalonCharles Taylor
It's an impressive, intelligent, compact piece of filmmaking...But Téchiné might be one of those directors whose work is best appreciated by critics and other filmmakers. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
French director Andre Techine (Alice and Martin) powerfully re-creates the mass exodus from the city and draws a fine performance from Beart as a woman struggling to shield her children from her own fear and confusion. Unfortunately the last act goes off the rails. Read full review
63
New York PostV.A. Musetto
The result is, alas, competent but unexceptional. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Beautifully shot, and graced with another winning performance from the lovely Beart, Strayed nevertheless fails because the relationship between Odile and Yvan never makes us feel the sexual passion it implies. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
The setup's a bit reminiscent of "The English Patient" -- except that Beart's much easier on the eyes and ears than Ralph Fiennes is -- but Strayed is even slower moving, if you can believe it. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Ostensibly a love story, the film is also handicapped by Téchiné's strong gay sensibility and clear lack of romantic interest in his characters. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
There's no emotional weight to either character, or to this far-from-dangerous liaison. All you can do is watch the slight story sputter, and try to figure out whether Bèart's formidable lips were made by God or man. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
A picture-book French film that's pretty and trite, rather than edgy and moving. Read full review
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