Critic Reviews

It's the rare portrait of a happy marriage that is honest about the complex currents of desire, and the drama is beautifully played by Bale, who gawks with soulful sweetness, and Watson, who does her most piercing work since "Breaking the Waves."

A satisfying story of love and marriage told with humor and insight.

There are a lot of movies about escaping from the middle class, but Metroland is one of the few about escaping into it.

A sexy, moody comedy that plays like a dreamy comic novel.

While it's true that you can't pack as much psychological detail into a movie as you can into a novel, director Philip Saville and screenwriter Adrian Hodges bring out the yeasty subtext of even the most brittle encounters.

Metroland finally makes a good, subtle case for the bearable weightiness of middle-class being, for the higher morality of muddling through.

A witty script and strong performances hoist Metroland beyond the confines of its rather standard, TV-style approach.

An unflashy tale of memory and desire in suburban London.

It's a thoughtfully constructed story, with nuanced performances all around and even a mild surprise thrown in, but the whole thing feels ever so slightly enervated, like a game of chess between codgers in the park.

Director Philip Saville, working from a script by Adrian Hodges (which, in turn, is based on the novel by Julian Barnes), has crafted a competent, character-based tale, but the issues examined are stale, and Saville is unable to find a way to take the story to a newer, more interesting level