Metacritic reviews

Carefully restored Powell and Pressburger minor masterpiece in glowing Technicolor, doing more than justice to Mary Webb's melodramatic sub-Hardy novel of late Victorian Shropshire. [05 Aug 2001, p.9]

This is a must-see film for its unashamed romanticism, its breathtaking visual delirium, the excellent performance of Cusack as the only rational person in the county and the sheer spirit with which the fundamental daftness of the plot is served up.

Forget Jones' rustic English (Kentucky? Australian?) and the melodramatic clichés (boots trampling posies): the haunting, dreamlike consistency recalls that other fairy story of innocence and menace, The Night of the Hunter.

Powell and Pressburger have hammered the ingredients with blunt, unyielding strokes, seasoned with vague psychological clangings and only remotely tempered with humor and real perception.

A rare misfire from the normally reliable team of Powell and Pressburger (THE RED SHOES), this 1890s British-based film was taken from a fair novel and only barely came up to the novel's standards, despite an excellent and lively turn by Jones in the lead.

Primarily a simple yarn about simple people, it is without finesse, polish or sophistication. Dialog just about emerges from the monosyllabical state.