In many ways, it has less in common with Shakespeare's tragedy than with Stephen King's Iowa-set horror story, Children of the Corn.
– Rita Kempley,
Washington Post,
3 Jul 2008
rotten:
The story is just an empty, manipulative compilation of tragedies and misunderstandings.
– Lisa Alspector,
Chicago Reader,
3 Jul 2008
rotten:
Owing more to the spirit of Oprah than to the Bard, pic serves up an earnest but unconvincing stew of received notions about family dysfunction, awkwardly put across by a script wheezing with melodramatic contrivances.
From the first frame, a silhouetted barn and windmill at dawn, the images feel prefab, and the all-purpose wistful tinkly piano and sighing strings pin them even more boringly down.