Disgrace

What the Critics Say (Critics Reviews)

a compelling screen adaptation of J. M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning 1999 novel… all the more devastating for being so coolly dispassionate.
– New York Times

It is hard to do justice to a film as rich in meaning and as visually striking as this… unnerving, mysterious, profoundly sad.
Disgrace may be his (Jacobs) masterpiece… It will haunt me for a long time.
– The Australian

as brutal and blunt in the hands of director Steve Jacobs as it is in Coetzee’s bare-bones prose… a remarkable accomplishment
– Washington Post

this is such a rare movie.. Malkovich, in one of his best performances…one of the year’s best films Roger Ebert
– Chicago Sun

These are a lot of questions for just one film, but the constant tragedy and the complex world in which Lurie lives are here to disturb us, and make us ask ourselves the very meaning of life.
– Pablo O. Scholz © FIPRESCI 2008

Anna-Maria Monticelli and helmer Steve Jacobs have distilled Coetzee’s tough novel into a focused, absorbing meditation on race, class, history and sex.
– Variety

With masterful concision and without the slightest air of contrivance, Anna Maria Monticelli’s screenplay manages to cover an incredible range of terrain… a hugely successful adaptation of JM Coetzee’s Booker Prize winning novel.
– Film Four (UK)

the actor (Malkovich) has left his imprint on one of his most engrossing roles
– International Herald Tribune

a riveting adaption of the South African writer J.M.Coetzee’s 1999 novel.
– The Age

Jacobs has taken a masterly novel and made an uncompromising brilliant film
– Australian Book Review

a superbly written, impressively directed and brilliantly acted drama
– The View London

a compelling human fable and a complex, ambiguous allegory of post-apartheid South Africa ….
– Observer/Guardian UK

an outstanding performance from John Malkovich
– Daily Express UK

a sharp, sensitive screenplay and superb performances from Jessica Haines and, particularly, Malkovich as Lurie
– Time Out UK

John Malkovich shines… and the story — sorrowful but never sentimental — is hypnotic.
– Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly