The Burning Plain
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: September 18, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
45
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
7
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
In The Burning Plain, another directorial debut, sensationalism is on order, but it's buttressed by fear, suffering, and desire – the schizo-blend that makes Arriaga's scripts so unique. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad Derakhshani
For a film that strives so hard to show the sheer messiness of real people's lives, Burning Plain does have an impossibly neat ending. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah Young
An ambitious, visually handsome production which fails to ignite. Read full review
50
VarietyDerek Elley
Many of the weaknesses and few of the strengths of Guillermo Arriaga as a scripter are evident in his directing debut, The Burning Plain. Read full review
20
Village VoiceAaron Hillis
The writer's most successful works--"The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" and "Amores Perros"--were bolstered by directors who brought genuine emotion to the screen, but The Burning Plain marks Arriaga's behind-the-camera debut, and his obviousness is staggering. Read full review
20
Time OutNicolas Rapold
This film’s greatest accomplishment is that its theatrical gestures manage to feel preposterous, pretentious and routine at the same time. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Told chronologically, it might have accumulated considerable power. Told as a labyrinthine tangle of intercut timelines and locations, it is a frustrating exercise in self-indulgence by writer-director Guillermo Arriaga. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The characters in The Burning Plain are so narrowly defined by tragedy that they reveal no other facets of humanity. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark Feeney
The best performance here comes from a Mexican child actress, Tessa Ia, as half of one of the fraught mother-daughter relationships. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesGary Goldstein
Powerful, profound and beautifully rendered. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Like his scripts for “21 Grams” and “Babel,” this one makes heavy use of happenstance and temporal displacement, and like them, too, it depends on ideas about human behavior that can only be called preposterous. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
All the actresses, especially Theron, are appropriately haunted, but let's hope Arriaga's love of echoes, fate and coincidence has run its mopey course. Read full review
38
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Here the characters aren't compelling enough to ask viewers to give their brains a workout to determine exactly what's going on. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The scenery (prettily captured by There Will Be Blood cinematographer Robert Elswit) is littered with heavy symbolism (fire! rain! dead birds!); the performances are merely heavy. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Initially, the puzzle structure and a pair of Oscar-winning actresses distract us from the dark vacuum at the center of this enterprise, but when it implodes, it doesn't reverberate. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Portland's dreary climate is used to good effect, but it's not enough to make up for the director's needlessly convoluted approach. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
The main drawbacks of The Burning Plain are its intentionally coy narrative and a zero-hour revelation that's ill-thought-out and generates some pretty chintzy psychobabble. It's the wobbliest element in an admirable, complex and frustrating movie. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
It's possible to admire the performances of stars Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger in The Burning Plain , even as you backpedal from the film, hoping the ponderous megasoap will just go away. Read full review
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