Reception
The film has a 61% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert called it "a psychological thriller of uncommon power maybe because it's so quiet and devious". In the Los Angeles Times, Kevin Thomas wrote "it is above all such an unsettling experience you find yourself still taking it all in well after the lights have gone up".
In praising the film, Andrew Sarris writing for the New York Observer said, "A surging undercurrent of black comedy drives us out to sea without ever breaking to the surface with glib psychological or sociological explanations. We cannot laugh out loud, nor can we feel any grief." Sarris singles out Garofalo's performance as "incandescent ... one of the most enticingly endearing female movie characters in recent years – witty, bubbly, but at the same time lonely and terrified of rejection." Glenn Lovell described the film as "an assured blend of Camus and Hitch's small-town classic, Shadow of a Doubt" in his Variety review.
The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
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