Possesses a tone that wobbles masterfully between whimsy, dread, affection and horror, building on rich performances and an understated showiness to cast a queer and tingly spell.
In an astonishingly assured film debut, Coppola captures the poetry and sweetness of Eugenides' novel without allowing any of the standard rites of passage -- first dates, high-school dances -- to feel trite.
88
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
From start to finish there's a shimmer of discovery about it - our discovery of it, Coppola's discovery of how much she can do.