Metacritic reviews

Fugitive Pieces has a sharp, devastating story to tell.

The strengths of Fugitive Pieces are its fluidity and subtlety. Emotional repression may be one of the most difficult conditions to portray honestly, and Dillane's performance of Jakob is a study in the art of creating sympathy by not asking for it.

For a tale spiked with so much torment, Fugitive Pieces feels remarkably soothing.

Hopscotching time on film is never easy, but Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa handles it with skill and care in Fugitive Pieces, his lovely, absorbing adaptation of Anne Michaels' lauded novel about a circumspect writer haunted by his traumatic past.

In many ways, Fugitive Pieces is a beautiful film. But it's a bit TOO beautiful.

The cool hand of Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa proves a disappointing match for Fugitive Pieces, a generally dull and unmemorable adaptation of Anne Michaels' extraordinary prose-poetry novel.

Fugitive Pieces is a cerebral excavation into history, written in lush cadences meant to be read or recited. It may be unfilmable, and in pursuit of sensitivity, Canadian writer-director Jeremy Podeswa hollows out the novel's urgency in favor of a vaguely spiritual morbidity.

The film has lofty goals, but comes across as leaden and pretentious. It's a character study in which the lead participant is the least interesting person in the movie.

As plodding and pretentious as it is ambitious.

Though much of the film's power is tamped down by the passive storytelling style, Dillane's performance as the adult Jakob is compelling, and Ayelet Zurer is beguiling as Jakob's late-in-life soul mate.