The Truth About Charlie: Critic Reviews

It would be hard to think of a recent movie that has worked this hard to achieve this little fun.

Most of the film's allure comes from the sensual, butter-voiced Thandie Newton; with her, Mr. Demme has found the 21st-century corollary to Audrey Hepburn.

At once listless and overheated, giddy and utterly zipless.

Had Demme had another round of script conferences (or maybe 10 rounds less?), this story might have found the right ratio of zaniness and actual narrative strength.

It's messy in the best and worst ways -- tremendously vivid but narratively overwrought.

The affectionate loopiness that once seemed congenital to Demme's perspective has a tough time emerging from between the badly dated cutesy-pie mystery scenario and the newfangled Hollywood post-production effects.

Not counting a few gross-out comedies I've been trying to forget, this is the first film in a long time that made me want to bolt the theater in the first 10 minutes.

The ferociously talented Thandie Newton is responsible for the film's satisfying fullness. Its emptiness is largely due to a wan Mark Wahlberg.

I realize that Mark Wahlberg is not Cary Grant, but shouldn't there be some compensating reason for his presence in this movie?

If it is true that there will never be another Audrey Hepburn, and it is, I submit it is also true that there will never be another Thandie Newton.

Demme gets a lot of flavor and spice into his Charade remake, but he can't disguise that he's spiffing up leftovers that aren't so substantial or fresh.

Here is a love story for movie lovers, one in which Demme opens his arms to old Hollywood, the New Wave, and lissome Newton for one breathless embrace.

An almost dizzying experience, but pleasantly so.

Apparently, Charade is one of Jonathan Demme's favorite films. So he decided to ruin it.

May not be and should not be everyone's cup of tea, but at the end of it, I felt a guilty affection for all its participants.

It's a forgery that diminishes not only the originality and pleasure of the film it copies, but also the entire school of filmmaking it wants to emulate.

The progression of Charlie from a cinematic lark into a yarn that becomes pretty knotty takes a good deal of the helium out of it.

Entertaining but instantly forgettable.

A slow-motion train wreck, a blundering re-imagining of the original through modern, edgy eyes.

An uneven but engaging remake of the 1963 romantic caper Charade.

Where a melting little meringue is wanted, Demme delivers a big, doughy sticky-bun of a movie, stuffed with little currants of other films.

I just sort of went along for the quasi-enjoyable ride in The Truth About Charlie, crappy and nonsensical as it may be on the whole.

The truth is that The Truth About Charlie gets increasingly tiresome.