Lesley Manville

In achieving a credible realism, Leigh and his actors refreshingly avoid the tidy and obvious.

Please steer away your loved ones from this tone-deaf travesty, this misbegotten farrago, this offensive, rank, charmless, near-lifeless, anti-romantic twaddle, a classic tale 'told by an idiot.' Want to know what I really think?

Almost certainly wouldn't have been made were it not for Angelina Jolie, whose extraordinarily striking presence recalls the Old Hollywood potency of Garbo. If only the film around Jolie were worthy of her.

Work[s] out some timely issues of the runaway male ego, the dubious excuse of great art for grotesque personality, and the shock and awe attendant to the select few who can see through genius and, for better or for worse, cut to the quick.

Audiences can’t be blamed for turning off their brains and focusing on the aesthetic trappings...in this film featuring a flying protagonist, nothing really lands.