- 9
...a one-of-a-kind experience ? blarney carried to rhapsodic heights.
—Peter Rainer Christian Science Monitor
- 7
...this modestly scaled home-base outing from Neil Jordan is a decidedly specialized affair that will appeal only to certain tastes, but there's plenty to appreciate if you let it seep in.
—Todd McCarthy Variety
- 7
Christopher Doyle's cinematography is as muggy, depressed, and lived-in as Farrell's performance, but while you get a real sense for the story's off-the-beaten-path locale, the erratic editing, with its perpetual shifts in point of view, can feel counterintuitive, though you could say that the rhythm of the film is not unlike that of the queasiest of waves.
—Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine
- 7
There is, as noted, a wisp of a tale tucked into this film, one that, as the story wears on, becomes ponderously weighed down with melodramatic filler and even some halfhearted genre action. That stuff is forgettable, but hold fast to that wisp, because it?s there that a man meets a mermaid, or maybe he doesn't, and you don't care because the light is so lovely, and so too are they.
—Manohla Dargis New York Times
- 7
...effectively sustains a mood of a hazy melancholy most affecting when nothing much is happening: Colin Farrell has the Best Enigmatic Stare in current cinema, and Christopher Doyle's gorgeous cinematography, all foggy blankets of blue and green, gives Syracuse's uncertainty a tangible texture.
—Karina Longworth LA Weekly
- 7
...effectively sustains a mood of a hazy melancholy most affecting when nothing much is happening: Colin Farrell has the Best Enigmatic Stare in current cinema, and Christopher Doyle's gorgeous cinematography, all foggy blankets of blue and green, gives Syracuse's uncertainty a tangible texture.
—Karina Longworth Village Voice
- 7
There are times that light touch feels a bit insubstantial, but thanks to the nicely pitched performances -- including an amusing one by Jordan regular Stephen Rea as an irreverent priest -- and Christopher Doyle's typically atmospheric cinematography, this redemptive tale set against southwest Ireland's moody seascape holds its tangible charms.
—Michael Rechtshaffen Hollywood Reporter
- 7
At other times, the road is rocky when the story speeds up to take care of business, with the end a mad dash to tie up loose ends. Still, there is enough saving grace on these craggy shores to let the mists and the legends roll in and envelop you for a while.
—Betsy Sharkey Chicago Tribune
- 7
At other times, the road is rocky when the story speeds up to take care of business, with the end a mad dash to tie up loose ends. Still, there is enough saving grace on these craggy shores to let the mists and the legends roll in and envelop you for a while.
—Betsy Sharkey Los Angeles Times
- 7
...looks heavy and it ends up feeling a little slight, but between those two extremes there?s a beguiling siren song of a movie about the way the unexpected has a way of intruding on even the most fatalistic lives.
—Keith Phipps Onion AV Club
- 6
...ultimately more a flawed exercise in storytelling than an honest-to-God failure.
—Chris Cabin filmcritic.com
- 5
...a split personality. It starts promisingly as a fantasy but ends disappointingly as a thriller.
—V. A. Musetto New York Post