Critical Reception
In his review in the New York Times, Vincent Canby said, "It is full of glittery costumes and spectacular props. It is performed by talented, sophisticated people who adopt the faux-naif gestures of an earlier show-biz tradition, and though it is expensive, it sounds peculiarly tacky . . . the film has the air of an operetta from which the music has been removed. It's even acted that way . . . Because A Matter of Time has moments of real visual beauty, and because what the characters say to each other is mostly dumb, it may be a film to attend while wearing your earplugs."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a fairly large disappointment as a movie, but as an occasion for reverie, it does very nicely. Once we've finally given up on the plot—a meandering and jumbled business—we're left with the opportunity to contemplate Ingrid Bergman at 60. And to contemplate Ingrid Bergman at any age is, I submit, a passable way to spend one's time . . . she possesses a radiant screen personality . . . for people who love movie romance, A Matter of Time must have seemed like a dream project. And yet the movie just doesn't hold together."
In Time, Jay Cocks stated, "It makes for an awkward occasion: a group of gifted people working so far below their best talents that everything takes on the giddy air of a runaway charade . . . the movie could have worked with hard effort and a little magic, but something has gone terribly wrong. Director Minnelli's once wondrous alchemy turns everything to lead. The movie is disjointed, sappy, hysterical; and the actors, perhaps sensing trouble, press on with painful, overbearing desperation . . . A Matter of Time does not look at all like a Minnelli movie. The fastidious craftsmanship that he has through the years expended even on the lowliest undertaking is nowhere in evidence."
Read more about this topic: A Matter Of Time (film)
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“Somewhere it is written that parents who are critical of other people’s children and publicly admit they can do better are asking for it.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)