Yentl

Miss Streisand excels in all departments. [21 Nov 1983]

It has a distinctive and surprising spirit. It's funny, delicate, and intense -- all at the same time.

Yentl is Streisand. Either you like her or you don't. And if a little Streisand means a lot, then a lot is what you've got. [09 Dec 1983, p.25]

Perhaps because we see so few musicals at all, the Streisand model seems welcome on any terms. But there is also a great deal of warmth in the picture, and it has what one-man shows do when they are working right: It has conviction, and a sense of the artist's vision. This movie was not made by committee, and hence it is free in a way that few American films are. [09 Dec 1983, p.D12]

Not to everyone's taste, but an earnest and hearfelt tale nonetheless.

The best thing about Yentl is its earnestness. It may resemble a vanity production from afar (or at close range, too, for that matter), but even at its kitschiest it seems to be heartfelt. That goes a long way, though not far enough, toward saving the film from its own built-in difficulties.

This lumbering, overwrought, and wildly self-indulgent adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's frail short story is clearly cranked up with the full quotient of sincerity and conviction.

I give 1 point simply because it gives an insight into life in the Shtetl in Eastern Europe in the early 1900's. However, from the very first speaking scenes, the movie is a joke. Everyone is speaking English in an Eastern European shtetl. Everyone besides Streisand is speaking with a Yiddish accent. She is speaking with a New York accent. What a joke. Off!