Having recently lost his mother, teenager Henry Nearing develops a crush on seductive classmate Grace, who toys with him. Though he has been friends with Merna for a long time, he fails to see her sincere attraction to him, and instead wastes time with the uncaring Grace.
Moral dilemmas faced by immature teens is fine fare for young-adult fiction, but a movie that wants them to be taken as something bigger needs better management than Nearing Grace can provide.
– Ted Fry,
Seattle Times,
13 Oct 2006
rotten:
The story here is as dog-eared as an old beach book, and about as deep.
– Stephen Whitty,
Newark Star-Ledger,
13 Oct 2006
rotten:
The performances by Smith, Brewster and veteran David Morse, as a morbidly depressed widower, elevate Nearing Grace to something near grace.
– Jack Mathews,
New York Daily News,
13 Oct 2006
fresh:
...cinematic youth has rarely seemed so convincingly uncertain, and Brewster could definitely drive a young guy crazy.
– Luke Y. Thompson,
Village Voice,
13 Oct 2006
fresh:
Smart, funny and, thanks in no small part to David Geddes' cinematography, it occasionally approaches the poetic.