An Unfinished Life Critic Reviews

Sometimes you are either open to a movie, or closed. If you're convinced that An Unfinished Life is damaged goods, how can it begin its work on you?Read the full review

Poignant and well-acted, it offers heartfelt moments leavened by subtle humor.Read the full review

An Unfinished Life isn't original, but, for those who enjoy this sort of drama, it's an opportunity to remember how, in the right circumstances, on-screen characters can touch our hearts.Read the full review

The film never realizes its dramatic potential, choosing to take predictable story paths with obvious characters.Read the full review

A film is in trouble when, despite the presence of an A-list cast and a well-regarded director, the best thing in it is a partly digitized bear.Read the full review

It's corny, but the film might have worked anyway, had anyone brought a lick of conviction to the business. But Lopez--once such a promising actress--now does little but pose, and everyone else seems to have figured out that the film wasn't going anywhere before the cameras started rolling.Read the full review

A perfectly OK drama, with a good cast and many good scenes, but it suffers from the usual maladies that films get when they've been out on the ranch too long: all-too-obvious symbolism and a serious case of the longueurs.Read the full review

It's an acceptable film, but the story of family ties and forgiveness simply cannot manage the emotional connections it is desperate for.Read the full review

Like most of Hallström's Hollywood movies ("The Cider House Rules," "Chocolat"), this one is excruciatingly tasteful.Read the full review