53
Metascore
8 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonChicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonIt's a good transcription, though sadly bowdlerized. [02 Jul 2000, p.29]
- 60Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesJust like the play, the first half is a delicious, hotel-room-set duel of desperate characters, while the second half goes awry. [01 Dec 1989, p.F18]
- 50The New YorkerPauline KaelThe New YorkerPauline KaelHysterical twaddle.
- 50Time OutTime OutBrooks' direction seems a little too stolid for all the sleazy, flaming passions.
- 40Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum[Brooks's] second Williams adaptation (1962) is literally a form of emasculation that offers little indication of what made the original play interesting (especially in Elia Kazan’s stage production), despite the fact that Paul Newman and Geraldine Page are called on to reprise their original roles—as a hustler returning to his southern hometown and a Hollywood has-been—and do a fair job with Brooks’s hopeless script.
- 40The New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe New York TimesBosley CrowtherSweet Bird of Youth, for all its graphics and the vigorous performance of its top roles, has the taint of an engineered soap opera, wherein the soap is simply made of lye, that's all.
- Most of it comes across as overheated nonsense, but Page's egomaniacal telephone soliloquy at the film's climax is reason enough to tune in.