Snow Flower and the Secret Fan 2011

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" aims for the heartstrings and only strikes a few notes. Read more

Alexis Loinaz, Chicago Tribune: Wang ... needlessly pads the movie with heart-tugging gimmicks and canned melodrama that undercuts its raw impact. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: The trouble is that the modern story whipped up for "Snow Flower" isn't very compelling. Yet it dominates the movie, continually oozing back in just as the period drama is getting interesting. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: All the two actresses do is gaze out of apartment and carriage windows, through floorboards, into each other's eyes, and, once, while wishfully wearing a man's suit. Read more

Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly: Sadly, rather than melding the best of two worlds, the film only takes the worst of their soap operas. Read more

James Rocchi, MSN Movies: I briefly felt bad when the film, in its first five minutes, knocked Sophie into a coma. But I felt even worse 10 minutes later: Dear reader, I envied her. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: For those who may have wondered if foot binding, wife beating and a crooning Hugh Jackman could fit into one movie, here's the short answer: no. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Feels less like an attempt to broaden the book's horizons than to cash in on Joy's cross-generational appeal while doubling down on cheap-shot melodrama. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: While the action flashes back and forth in increments of centuries, years or months, we're adrift in the here and now, trying to get a grip on the characters and their relationships, yet finding it loosened with every new dislocation. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Bears little resemblance to the book, and even less resemblance to a good movie. Read more

Alison Willmore, AV Club: Aims for The Joy Luck Club's crossover appeal but ends up stilted and emotionally remote. Read more

Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic: The film is visually sumptuous but emotionally inert. It never draws in the viewer. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: In this lavish adaptation of Lisa See's novel, the complex chronologies of the parallel narratives are skillfully handled by director Wayne Wang, which makes his reliance on unbridled sentimentality all the more irritating. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The film version of "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" proceeds as if willed into being by a particularly misguided "question for discussion," the kind you'd find at the tail end of a bestseller's paperback edition. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: It's a coordinated, stylish dance, but the steps are awfully familiar. Read more

Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter: An emotionally powerful tale of two sets of Chinese women in two different centuries. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The drastic alterations to Lisa See's compelling novel about the lifelong friendship between two women in 19th century China are unsettling, at least for fans of the original bestseller, and they detract a bit too much from the story See so artfully told. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Whatever passion might have been here to begin with never made it to the screen. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Its story-within-a-story - a tale of two laotong, or soul sisters, in oppressive mid-1800s China - is gorgeous but simplistic. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: You're advised to bring a hankie or two should you venture forth to see the tearjerker "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan." Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: A story of much visual grace and, sadly, considerable narrative awkwardness. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: As movies about female bonding go, "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" is thin tea. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" has such seriousness and purpose behind it that for 10 or 15 minutes it could be mistaken for a good movie. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's the No-Joy, Bad-Luck Club. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Once we've quickly digested the fortune-cookie message that modern women are as bound by obligations as their grandmothers were, all we can savor is the scenery. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: The juxtaposition of stories about women in old and new China may have been intended to widen the audience for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but all it does is lose the heart and pathos of See's novel in a jumbled mess. Read more

Leah Rozen, TheWrap: An ever-so-tasteful, watered-down and unnecessarily-improved-upon adaptation of Lisa See's bestselling 2005 novel of the same name. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: [A] confusing time-travelling tale that uses Lisa See's 2005 bestseller of the same name to fuel cheap sentiment and a jumbled story. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Perhaps this was intended to draw the largely female crossover audience that went to Joy Luck Club. But the dual stories don't mesh well. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: What should be a moving testament to the enduring friendship between two Chinese women instead plays like a bewildering apologia for co-dependency issues. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: As the parallel friendships evolve over time, both push and pull between platonic and erotic; it's to the film's credit that it never definitively suggests that love can only be one or the other. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: Emphasizes melodrama over character development, until the proceedings feel like a rabbit hole of misfortune. Read more