Le Pére, is able to turn devastating illness into a kind of disjointed poetry — and one still threaded with real emotional resonance — is a testament to his skill as a first-time filmmaker.
...no one should have been surprised by Hopkins’s win, since his performance in this highly praised stage-to-screen melodrama is pure Oscar-bait: showy, wordy and worthy.
...Hopkins, Colman, Williams, Sewell and Poots give us an eyeful and and earful of a fate awaiting far too many of us in this quietly gripping and intimate drama.
The entire film is a magic trick; a dangerous, mature, and cunning movie-making adroitness that would make Keyser Söze give a Mr. Mayagi nod of appreciation (yes, I went for two wildly different film references there).