The Town Is Quiet
New Yorker Films | Release Date: October 26, 2001 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
VarietyDavid Stratton
Guediguian's seemingly sprawling but in fact quite precise picture takes a while to establish itself, but is eventually rewarding viewing. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Intimate and human yet deeply ambitious, a powerhouse of a film made with a disturbing vision. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen Holden
You are left with an overall impression of a movie so full of life that it is almost bursting at the seams. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Fumbling characters find that survival is not a matter of economics alone, it's also a matter of hope. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyErnest Hardy
Leaves you reeling from the force of the humanity it captures and -- in its own gut-wrenching way -- honors. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
An audacious film, set in contemporary Marseille. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The sense of loneliness and disaffection makes its effect. Guédiguian offers no answers, and the hope he supplies is almost surreal. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
The movie may not be as toxic and ultimately hopeless as Todd Solondz's "Happiness," but it also fails to find humor, dark or light, in anything. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Intermittently compelling drama.
60
Film ThreatSaul Austerlitz
Strives toward greatness, toward a complete understanding of life in the roiling, unsettled, complex locale they call Marseilles, and its partial success must be applauded. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Multi-character drama that reveals a vivid cross-section of the city's inhabitants but fails to live up to the director's high ambitions. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It doesn't quite wash. Guédiguian has a telling instinct for the buried shame of working-class squalor, but his film is inflated with a doom that feels programmatic rather than earned. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderTed Shen
Some of the film's situations and motivations seem convenient or underdeveloped, but Ascaride and Darroussin are riveting, and Guediguian's frankness and empathy illuminate this kaleidoscope of lonely lives. Read full review
50
New Times (L.A.)Gregory Weinkauf
The challenge faced here by writer-director Robert Guédiguian (Charge!) is to keep his cheap melodrama from curdling his insightful societal appraisal.
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Rambles on for nearly two hours with subplots that go nowhere -- and half-baked leftist political commentary -- before focusing in for a quietly devastating climax. Read full review
40
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The last-minute combination of Greek tragedy and Janis Joplin is so genuinely startling that, had the movie been shorted by a third, it might have turned everything around. Read full review
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