Ondine is Injected with a heavy dose of magic and has a lot going for it: an endearing performance from star Colin Farrell, Christopher Doyle's evocative cinematography and a captivating-if thin-story.
Ondine plumbs the country's most resonant fairy tale and plays impishly along the borders of postcard fantasies of Ireland.
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Mostly, though, Ondine deftly demonstrates just how far we'll reach for any promise of relief from life's hardships, in whatever form -- magic or plain dumb luck -- it arrives.
The road is rocky when the story speeds up to take care of business, with the end a mad dash to tie up loose ends. Still, there is enough saving grace on these craggy shores to let the mists and the legends roll in and envelop you for a while.
60
EmpireDavid Hughes
EmpireDavid Hughes
Funny, whimsical and as warming as a big bowl of Irish stew.
Neil Jordan's Ondine has a split personality. It starts promisingly as a fantasy but ends disappointingly as a thriller.
40
New York Daily News
New York Daily News
Jordan's screenplay aims for a romanticism that the beautiful but stiff Bachleda is unable to fulfill. And the ending, which injects the film's dreamy sensibility with an ugly note of realism, crashes over everything like a frigid wave.