The Sea Inside
Fine Line Features | Release Date: December 17, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyJonathan Holland
A dramatic triumph. Read full review
100
PremiereKevin Allison
In the way that water can heal and harm, this film balances moments of dreamy spirituality with the salty harshness of family disputes. Read full review
100
USA TodayClaudia Puig
A monumentally moving experience, from the powerful acting by Javier Bardem to the evocative music, composed by the director, Alejandro Amenábar. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Based on a true story, the movie has abundant humor and uplift - but it's a heartbreaker of extraordinary dimension. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The Sea Inside brings us outside and inside ourselves, and takes us to brave new aesthetic depths. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
The result is a film both poetic and profound. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
What makes The Sea Inside such a riveting drama is that none of these relationships is sufficient to make Ramón want to go on living. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
Bardem's performance is a marvel of restraint and control, both physical and emotional. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The Sea Inside is uplifting. This is a movie that may cause viewers to both laugh and cry. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The film is a melancholy but poetic meditation on the fragility of the gift of life. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Has its share of contrivances, some more successful than others, but center stage is occupied by truth, and austere beauty.
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
A film about freedom as well as death, this won't suit every taste, but it rewards close attention and has moments of saving humor. Read full review
80
SlateDavid Edelstein
As for Bardem: How can I do him justice? He is normally the most robustly physical of actors, with a plummy voice and an insolent sensuality. To see him immobile, ashen, his hair gone, de-bodyized: It's agonizing. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Ken Tucker
Operates as stealth art: stately, moving, beautifully acted, and urgently subversive to our own status quo. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverMelissa Levine
A flawed film worth seeing. Read full review
80
EmpireKim Newman
The more intimate scenes are almost unbearably poignant. Read full review
80
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Rare is the motion picture which grapples with issues this provocative and profound. Rarer still is one which does so this well. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Bardem is brilliant. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Wrings honest emotion and riveting dramatics from its tale. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
It's moving, romantic, dreamlike, flawlessly acted and so engaging as to make you forget about euthanasia before it jolts you back into recognition. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This is simply the story of one man. Yes, and on those terms I accept it, and was moved by the humanity and logic of the character. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
For the most part, the film stays steady-on, celebrating one man's crusade - and one family's heartbreak. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The classy production, with its aesthetic graces, is especially convincing about the charisma of the man, a performance specialty of the great Bardem. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The film, quite rightly, is a tour de force for Bardem. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Leah McLaren
This movie might make you cry, but it is not explicitly designed to do so. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Fortunately, Bardem, who earned an Oscar nomination for his role in Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls," makes up for the script's shortcomings. Read full review
70
Village VoiceLaura Sinagra
Unfortunately, Bardem is confined by more than Ramón's paralysis. He also must work within the limits of a partially numbed script. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineEthan Alter
The result isn't an easy film, but it is rewarding. Read full review
70
SalonCharles Taylor
There's a combination of fatalism and hard-edged humor at work in The Sea Inside that you can imagine Irish writers would feel right at home with. Read full review
70
NewsweekDavid Ansen
It's a testament to his (Amenabar's) cinematic flair that he has taken as daunting a subject as euthanasia and turned it into a crowd-pleasing movie. It's also an indication of what feels wrong here. I can't deny that I was moved, but it all goes down a bit TOO easy. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
If the movie is largely familiar, its passion and craft are noteworthy. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Understandably, a filmmaker tackling the retelling of a national hero must do so with great delicacy, but The Sea Inside presents not so much a hero as a saint in Sampredo. Read full review
63
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Bardem gives such a brilliant performance in The Sea Inside, it's a crime that the film itself drowns in tears. Read full review
60
Washington PostNelson Pressley
Placid and rather attractive on the surface, with depths you can sense but which are never fully plumbed. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
When pinned mostly in the man's bedroom, Amenábar's flashier instincts are stifled by a bolted camera and a procession of issue-of-the-week clichés. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
The film fails to convey the claustrophobic terror experienced by a man who called his book "Letters From Hell." Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
You want the movie to stir your soul, push your intellect, or at the very least, break your heart. But it's such a repetitive and thinly constructed piece of filmmaking that the scope and complexity of Sampedro's case are turned to porridge. Read full review
40
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
I remained strangely dry-eyed up to the final shot. Read full review
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