Brightlyme i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

jenn976-1 Sleepwalking, dead, boring, an endurance test for the audience - all have been said before so why am I adding to the comments I agree with? There is this:"...it isn't before a man treats her badly that she realizes on stage, that she has talent and that she connects with the audience and emerges as a stronger human being."This must be the reviewer's imagination talking. One can tell that this is the point of the movie that its makers are trying to make but they failed. Utterly. The only reason I kept it going in the machine was to see if they could redeem themselves. But they did not. It's a very big disappointment. There is no connection with the audience - either in the theater's audience inside the story itself or the movie audience watching this.Too many close-ups, just way too many. I'd call it possibly a workshop on close-ups - if you're in the business. Otherwise, why waste money on this? It's just pointless."the film never reveals more than it needs to."Honestly, it reveals nothing. And yes, why was so much money thrown at this movie? I seriously wonder if the backers needed to lose money for tax purposes.

geoffatmhg Boring and appallingly acted(Summer Pheonix). She sounded more Asian than Jewish. Some of the scenes and costumes looked more mid 20th century than late 19th century. What on earth fine actors like Ian Holm & Anton Lesser were doing in this is beyond me.

julieart A shame that even a talented director, Desplechin, could not muster a decent performance out of a bleakly-talented actress, Phoenix, Esther Kahn lacks the substance to convey a very concise and clear plot. In an attempt to fulfill the concentric circle of an actor's plight, the performance and presentation is too contrived and poorly executed to draw any compassion from the viewer. In an overly long running time, the redundancy of Esther's struggle is too melodramatic to be effective and reduces the storyline into a frail frame of a disastrous display. The content is incoherent and gratuitous as Phoenix struggles to carry out Desplechin's instruction, just as Esther is supposedly trying to do the same. Never feeling a convincing victory over Esther's pain, we never feel a victory in Phoenix's talent.

adagr I've seen this film because I had do (my job includes seeing movies of all kinds). I couldn't stop thinking "who gave money to make such an awful film and also submit it to Cannes Festival!" It wasn't only boring, the actors were awful as well. It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.