Death And The Maiden Critic Reviews

Death and the Maiden doesn't always escape its contraption origins, but it ends with one of the most honest-and poetic- reckonings of human evil in modern movies. It's Polanski braying at his own bitter moon.Read the full review

As vivid and suspenseful as Roman Polanski has made this claustrophobic tale of a torture victim turning the tables on her putative tormentor, one is still left with a film in which each character represents a mouthpiece for an ideology.Read the full review

Mr. Polanski's brilliance with the camera turns Ariel Dorfman's well-meaning but pretentious play about human rights into a harrowing experience.Read the full review

Death and the Maiden is all about acting. In other hands, even given the same director, this might have been a dreary slog.Read the full review

Polanski directs the film without a wasting a moment. The occasional humor does nothing to relieve tension but, as in a Hitchcock picture, has a way of increasing it.Read the full review

Polanski, working from a fluid script by Dorfman and Rafael Yglesias ("Fearless"), gives the story its due. He creates an atmosphere of claustrophobic tension to rival his "Knife in the Water" and "Repulsion".Read the full review

Polanski stages some lovely moments, particularly Paulina's candlelit dinner in her closet. But he also undercuts the high-minded ideals of Dorfman's original by exposing its radical chic pretentions.Read the full review

Polanski touch -- apart from a little suspense here and there -- is limited. And the story, which Ariel Dorfman adapted from his radical-chic play, is too contrived and smug to really hold.Read the full review

Polanski abandons all attempts at subtlety. The resulting production ends up far too heavy-handed to be considered powerful drama.Read the full review