Name : Kevin Thomas / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A sophisticated, elegant-looking film shot in distinctive, wide-ranging L.A. locales, but its real terrain is the human heart, explored with compassion and respect.

Name : Roger Moore / Alias : Orlando Sentinel
Nine Lives is an elegant film of quick, tour-de-force acting turns, a simple actor's gesture that tells you more than four pages of dialogue, a movie that demands concentration but that rewards the viewer willing to pay attention.

Name : Eleanor Ringel Gillespie / Alias : Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some parts are stronger than others, but as a fleshed-out artistic vision, Nine Lives works remarkably well.

Name : Carrie Rickey / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
[Garcia] leaves you thinking deeply about these people. And leaves you wanting more.

Name : Nathan Rabin / Alias : AV Club
If only every women's movie had Nine Lives' fire, intelligence, and conviction, they wouldn't have such a shaky reputation in the first place.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
An extraordinarily rich and satisfying suite of fleeting but intense moments in the lives of nine women.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
The moments that Garcia has chosen to observe are unforgettable, the women - played by an ensemble of actresses at the top of their respective games - indelible.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Ebert & Roeper
I thought this was a great film.

Name : Ruthe Stein / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It feels like real life, in nine acts.

Name : Lisa Rose / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
For a film centered on connection and continuity, Nine Lives is curiously erratic.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
What's the point? If I wanted to spend 12 minutes watching someone pushing a cart around a grocery store, I'd go to the local A&P, not sit in a movie theater.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
Not all of Nine Lives clicks, but at its best it finds an inarticulate sisterly solace that makes you want to see what this director could do with one life per film.

Name : Jack Mathews / Alias : New York Daily News
A fascinating series of vignettes.

Name : Terry Lawson / Alias : Detroit Free Press
Composed of nine short films, each starring some of the best female actors working, though many of them aren't working enough.

Name : Scott Foundas / Alias : Variety
Though the episodic structure results in a whole not quite equal to some of its parts, pic is an unusually tender, perceptive character study buoyed by stellar performances from a who's who of talented (and many underused) actresses.

Name : Bruce Westbrook / Alias : Houston Chronicle
The cast steps up, embracing the chance to exercise acting chops normally limited to live theater. Most do so resoundingly, but two stand out: Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs.

Name : Michael Wilmington / Alias : Chicago Tribune
A disturbingly frank look at people and relationships in contemporary Los Angeles and a thrilling dramatic showcase for a brilliant cast.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
The bad stories waste your time, and the good ones leave you unsatisfied.

Name : Andrew Sarris / Alias : New York Observer
The cumulative effect of the rigorously controlled and purposive camera style adds up in the end to a collective portrait of womankind that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Name : Laura Sinagra / Alias : Village Voice
The short-story glimpses aim for Carver-esque pang, though the script could have used some Lorrie Moore bite.

Name : Roger Ebert / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
The greatest short story writers, like William Trevor and Alice Munro, can awe us; their stories are short but not small. Here Rodrigo Garcia does the same thing.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
As delicately and precisely constructed as a spider's web, Nine Lives is a quiet triumph.

Name : Robert Denerstein / Alias : Denver Rocky Mountain News
In looking at the lives of nine very different women, Garcia often seems to be closing in on something essential, small suggestive moments that attempt to resonate with meaning. Some do. Some don't.

Name : Lisa Schwarzbaum / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Although each character holds the spotlight only briefly, she arrives as if with a life already in progress, and it's easy to believe that she'll keep busy even after the credits roll.

Name : David Germain / Alias : Associated Press
The stories are sketches, often without resolution, and while individual segments succeed admirably, taken together the portraits are a fitful match.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
We're told that a certain action is impossible, until it isn't, or that a certain thing would never happen, and then it does, so even with all those lives on the line, the movie can't effectively build up stakes or consequences.

Name : Andrew Barker / Alias : Variety
The whole cast and crew all put in a solid shift at the office making the movie, producing a perfectly entertaining, sometimes quite well-crafted disaster drama that nonetheless retreats from the memory almost as soon as the credits roll.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
The movie's all ship, no crew. We get lots of effects, but little emotion. We're awash in spectacle - car crashes, sinking tankers, storm-tossed boats - but the human element is mostly forgotten.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
While its first-act romance has a sweetly nostalgic, Andy Hardy glow, and its high-seas action sequences are mildly thrilling, The Finest Hours ultimately feels too harmless and predictable to fully surrender to.

Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Gillespie isn't able to conjure a stirring cinematic experience. The pieces don't fuse so much as fit together, and much of the action feels instructive rather than immersive.