48
Metascore
9 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- When Liz is good, she's very, very good, but when she's bad, she gives it all she's got. Director Daniel Mann definitely had a way with leading ladies.
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineGlossy trash with the star at full throttle, it's the quintessential La Liz movie.
- 60The New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe dialogue is rough. Let's say O'Harrowing. And the ending is absurd. But so is most of it for that matter. It's the living it up that gets you in this film.
- 60Film ThreatFilm ThreatLike a TV sitcom where the locations of commercial breaks can be foreseen, after about twenty minutes of Butterfield 8, you can predict when a transition will conclude a scene.
- Taylor’s work is several notches above the botched material, adapted from the John O’Hara novel.
- 50Alterations made on John O'Hara's 1935 novel by the scenarists (among other things, they have updated it from the Prohibition era, spectacularized the ending and refined some of the dialog) have given Butterfield 8 the form and pace it needs, but the story itself remains a weak one, the behavior and motivations of its characters no more tangible than in the original work.
- 40Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrIt's just about as awful as you'd expect, despite the presence of two first-class screenwriters.
- 30Time OutTime OutOnce thought of as racy and adventurous in its treatment of sex, this turgid nonsense about a high-class whore with love in her heart has dated atrociously. Taylor hams away and Harvey in his debonair mood is distinctly unappealing, while the overall effect is too excruciating even to be unintentionally funny.
- 30The New YorkerPauline KaelThe New YorkerPauline KaelDaniel Mann's direction is maybe even worse that the Charles Schnee-John Michael Hayes script.