Hearts in Atlantis: Critic Reviews

A precious respite from the postmodern era and all that it entails.

Hicks's film is magical, but its magic comes not from the inexplicable phenomena we most commonly associate with King, but from the charms of childhood.

The unblinking sympathy for kids struggling with evil and with the strange frequencies of prepubescent passion can, if your defenses are down, lay you out.

A sweet coming-of-age story set in the summer of 1960, akin in mood to [King's] Stand by Me.

A fussy piece of schmaltz that makes you long for Stand By Me, a vastly superior coming-of-age tale from King's pen.

Hicks ... coats the film in a bogus idyllic mist that substitutes cheap sentiment for blunt truth.

Above average coming of age story.

A movie that says we might as well pack it in as soon as we turn 18 is more bitter than bittersweet.

What happened to the prodigious vitality of Scott Hicks (Shine): His third feature sugffers from the same stifling artistic treatment that his second did, and this one is based on stories by Stephen King!

Hicks' film is a beautiful trifle, a neat trick of light and sound to coax empathy

If good cinematographers are 'panning for gold' with their camera lens, Sobocinski has put his pan in the river and come back with a fortune.

Hearts in Atlantis is a leap of faith with nothing on the other side.

The film has a lot of nice little touches going for it, and while there are the obligatory moments of heartstring plucking underscored by the stir of violins, it never really overdoes things. The only problem is, it's just been so done already.

You'll still come away from Hearts in Atlantis wanting to read the book, but had Hicks and Goldman got it right, you would've run straight from the cinema to buy it.

While this film has the potential to be either a heartwarming coming-of-age story or a tense psychological thriller, it doesn't really achieve either goal.

Hopkins continues to turn in one lackluster performance after another.

This movie invokes a sense of nostalgia and a yearning for those childhood friends who, as we grow older, may be forgotten but will never be replaced.

It could have been something special; instead it is run-of-the-mill.

feels a bit pre-fabricated, although William Goldman's screenplay sets up intriguing offbeat relationships between Bobby and Ted and Bobby and Elizabeth...

Una cinta tierna y emocionante por momentos...pero no termina por convencer.

...minor shortcomings come in its overused setting, slightly lackadaisical pace, and mildly unresolved conclusion, small matters if the movie puts you under its spell.

The elegiac, reflective mood is treated almost incidentally, letting it earn a reaction naturally

I will not deny that it left me with a very nice feeling throughout.

The movie is light years behind the touching celebration of youth found in Stand By Me.

Likeable, nostalgic movie that walks a smooth tightrope between a coming-of-age tale and a dark, long-forgotten Twilight Zone episode.