We cover years at a bound, but when we light, we tend to spend long, lingering moments through the camera's loving eye. This is a beautiful film to see.
- Richard Nilsen, Arizona Republic, March 15, 2012
Tran has drained the life right out of the novel.
- Rick Groen, Globe and Mail, March 02, 2012
It becomes a film that, like its characters, remains elusive in its motivations and therefore detached from its audience.
- Bruce Demara, Toronto Star, March 01, 2012
A master of mood and visuals, Tran proves an inspired choice.
- G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle, February 02, 2012
It's sweet all the way up, wavers in dread and slides down to doom.
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, January 19, 2012
This lush, eventually torpid adaptation of Haruki Murakami's more nuanced 1987 cult-favorite novel considers youthful love, loss, and eros...
- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly, January 12, 2012
Maybe this was the project Tran has been waiting for. I rate this the best film of his non-prolific career by far.
- Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com, January 06, 2012
"Norwegian Wood" is a restrained portrait of liminal moments, a coming-of-age tale that feels more like a moody ghost story than a neatly contained chronicle of beginnings.
- Stephanie Merry, Washington Post, January 06, 2012
Even for a film set in a land that considers paper folding an exciting activity, this is dull stuff.
- Kyle Smith, New York Post, January 06, 2012
The gently diffuse light and color and the compositions by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping Bin, create a delicate, almost watercolored world, fading like a memory.
- Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger, January 06, 2012
While this beautiful-looking film at times succeeds in capturing its source material's delicate emo spirit, it's far less attentive to the richness of Murakami's characters.
- Justin Chang, Variety, January 05, 2012
The truth is knotty in Norwegian Wood, deftly adapted by Franco-Vietnamese writer-director Tran Anh Hung from Haruki Murakami's most popular novel.
- Mark Jenkins, NPR, January 05, 2012
"Norwegian Wood" registers less as a coherent narrative than as a tortuous reverie steeped in mournful yearning.
- Stephen Holden, New York Times, January 05, 2012
Tran seems to realize that the best a filmmaker can do under these circumstances may be to substitute visual for linguistic beauty. And he has created stunning tableaux, before which the saddest of stories unfolds.
- Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News, January 05, 2012
Two and a half hours that offer barely a hint of the beloved 1987 cult novel's true flavor.
- Mark Holcomb, Village Voice, January 03, 2012
Looks great; moves like a steam roller with a flat tyre.
- Jim Schembri, The Age (Australia), October 18, 2011
While the film doesn't work for me at all, it clearly works for others; it was selected as one of the 12 in Competition at the 2011 Sydney Film Festival.
- Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile, October 01, 2011
Tran doesn't skimp on the book's '60s nostalgia, playing up the funky period fashions and retro-future decor.
- David Fear, Time Out New York, January 04, 2012
Norwegian Wood is a beauteous, lukewarm bore.
- Sam Adams, AV Club, January 05, 2012
A visually stunning and moving piece of storytelling bolstered by searing performances and a standout score by Jonny Greenwood.
- Alonso Duralde, The Wrap, January 06, 2012
![Norwegian Wood [SUBTITLED]](/GeneratedImages/Title.aspx/large/Norwegian%2bWood%2b%255bSUBTITLED%255d.png)
