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      Empire Falls

      2005 List
      Reviews 75% 5,000+ Ratings Audience Score Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

      View All (143) audience reviews
      Audience Member An all-star cast, made as a mini-series on HBO, tremendous acting from a dance-card full of Oscar winners and nominees (including Paul Newman's last time on screen). One could argue there isn't much plot as it revolves around choices made over a generation in a small town, but it's a fine depiction of real life. Just the right amount of emotion and events blended together. 4/10/20 Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/19/23 Full Review Audience Member Decent series. The standout for me was the cinematography, which was superb. The cast was also superb. You can't assemble a better ensemble cast than this. The storytelling was just average, which is where it kind of lost me. I was not initially aware that this was based on a novel, but you could guess early on. There were, in my opinion, too many stories going on which did not have a lot of depth to them. They were very average-divorce from a child's and parent's perspective. Affairs, especially among the town's wealthy. Haves versus have nots. The end of these stories did not get tied together until the last maybe half hour of the series. It was a satisfying ending. Even though there were many talented actors and actresses, I can't say any one of them gave a memorable performance. It was a decent story about small town life in a former manufacturing town. I did appreciate the story in that regard. It did tell the reality of New England towns which suffered as a result of factories closing down. But that was just a backdrop. The last episode had most of the action in this movie, the first episode was slow. I would recommend it without a sense of urgency, but break it up. It's a very slow burn for three hours. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/07/23 Full Review panayiota k 3 and a half hours was too much for all those problematic people! Despite that it is a watchable, quality tv miniseries with a nice cast. I mean Paul Newman alone (who was the reason i decided to watch this in the first place) Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member It's a mini-series that pulls you in with its conflicts of the present while exposing some of the town's problem's of the past, and it has a wide assortment of characters that helps keep the seemingly quiet setting alive. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member I LOVE this...and could watch it over and over.... Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Audience Member I LOVE this...and could watch it over and over.... Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

      Cast & Crew

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      Critics Reviews

      View All (4) Critics Reviews
      John Leonard New York Magazine/Vulture Cajoled through this landscape by a Thornton Wilder Our Town voice-over, we are too conscious of a series of well-bred calculations and well-done set pieces, as if Maine had been Merchant Ivory'd. Jan 19, 2018 Full Review Richard Roeper Ebert & Roeper It's better on HBO where it can play over a couple of nights and you get a chance for the story. Because if you try to compress it into a hundred-minute movie, you'd lose all the rich textures at work here. May 24, 2005 Full Review Sean Axmaker Seanax.com [Richard] Russo adapts his own novel for the HBO mini-series, which is essentially a four-hour film spread over two parts, and the format gives him the room to let the story and its characters live and breathe. Jun 16, 2016 Full Review Christopher Smith Bangor Daily News (Maine) It collapses. Rated: C- Sep 11, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

      Movie Info

      Director
      Fred Schepisi