The White Countess
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: December 21, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 30 Critic Reviews
Positive:
17
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
It's a very classy, finely made film, and, as one watches it -- particularly those last sweeping scenes of political turbulence and escape -- one feels both pain at their (Merchant-Ivory) parting and grateful for what, together, they achieved. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that this oasis of romance amid the turmoil of Shanghai represents the way that Merchant and Ivory, for 40 years, saw themselves: as a sanctuary of calming, life-size taste in a movie culture grown coarse. It was often far from perfect, but I'll miss that sanctuary. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The movie works best as spectacle: as a piece of old-style, non-CGI, on-location epic filmmaking. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The film takes a long time to unfold, and some scenes feel inert. But ultimately, the conclusion is moving and satisfying. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Fiennes and Richardson make this film work with the quiet strangeness of their performances; if they insist on their eccentricities, it's because they've paid them off and own them outright. Read full review
75
New York PostLou Lumenick
Following his triumphs in "The Constant Gardener" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Fiennes is superb as Todd. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Fiennes's performance, tricky and impassioned, is the showpiece. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Richardson -- acting with her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, who plays her aunt, and her aunt Lynn Redgrave, who plays her mother -- finds the story's grieving heart. Fiennes is her match in soulful artistry. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
This is Merchant-Ivory's kind of showmanship, the unflashy adult variety of movie magic that they made their hallmark. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Any resemblance between this film and "Casablanca" is purely deliberate. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
It offers top actors in Fiennes and Richardson, plus a rare joint appearance by the sisters Redgrave. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
For gourmands who appreciate this sort of cinematic comfort food, though, The White Countess is a fitting finale for the producer. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Its sumptuous, stately pace will wither the patience of countless moviegoers, but the impressively acted and gorgeously exotic The White Countess improves the longer you mull its complexities. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
The director has staged the elaborate production in his usual stately but impressive manner, and the production values boast the usual Merchant/Ivory stamp of quality. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Combines a delayed-gratification romance and rumblings of war. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubTasha Robinson
As with so many Merchant-Ivory films, The White Countess glides along on restrained, skillful performances and tapestry-rich cinematography, but its beating heart lies deep below the surface, where only determined viewers will find it. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
In any case, the movie moves only when she's (Richardson) in the center of it, and her complex performance as a woman balancing her dignity with her survival instincts is one of the year's very best. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
With its tentative pace, fussy, pieced-together structure and stuffy emotional climate, The White Countess never develops any narrative stamina. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The White Countess takes place in a fascinating time and place, rife with conflict and turmoil. But to watch Fiennes float (and Richardson trudge) through it all, absorbed in themselves and their own private misery, is to wish they'd started falling earlier, if only to knock some sense into them. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie Errigo
Trouble is, James Ivory just doesn't do sleaze. The tawdry milieu of taxi dancers, pleasure-seekers and spies rings hollow. Read full review
50
VarietyJustin Chang
This final production from the team of James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant is itself adrift in more ways than one, with a literate but meandering script by "The Remains of the Day" novelist Kazuo Ishiguro that withholds emotional payoffs to an almost perverse degree. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Ivory's last minute decision to render his hero sightless may make certain symbolic sense, but creates an even greater distance between Jackson and the woman he must inevitably come to love; their dull self-restraint makes "The Remains of the Day" look like soft-core porn. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
I have the greatest respect for Kazuo Ishiguro, whose wonderful novel "The Remains of the Day" became one of the best films in the Merchant-Ivory oeuvre. But the combination of his stately writing and James Ivory's stately directing, even when pepped by Christopher Doyle's fizzy cinematography, makes for fatally low-key viewing. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A watchable disappointment. Sumptuous to look at, tastefully dull, and ultimately rather silly. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
This last Merchant/Ivory film feels like a thin apparition of the team's best films -- similarly static but less substantial, less palpable, and sadly less respectable, just the vestigial remains of a better day. Read full review
50
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
This romantic tragedy has the measured gentility of the M.I. classics, but its sheen of crass melodrama is startling, and its many metaphors run amok in a tangle. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Moves with the stately speed of most Merchant/Ivory productions, which is to say too damn slow, but the film is snatched from the jaws of tedium by Doyle's resplendently lush camerawork and Fiennes and Richardson's spot-on performances. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Cinematographer Christopher Doyle suffuses the film with color, fire and smoke. But the more lively his images become, the more faded the characters seem. Read full review
40
Village VoiceEd Park
Alas, The White Countess, the final Merchant Ivory film, is something of a lacquered dud. Read full review
40
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Despite its brilliant evocation of this great city at this most provocative time in history, the movie just gets sillier and sillier. Read full review
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