Frances Smith

Oh dear! Lovely cast, beautiful scenery - shame about the storyline! A poor man’s Bond movie, badly plotted, appalling script! Did someone get paid for this rubbish!?!?

Just dire, from beginning to end! Pretentious and pointless argumentative tosh, so unfunny it hurts! Coy, cute and actually rather embarrassing for such good actors.Shame!

Oh dear! Seriously underwritten, poorly directed, nobody actually has a conversation with anyone. Emily Watson plays the Mother Superior and she is very good, suitably scary. But no one else says anything clear or consequential at any time. Sadly the story is unclear and the back story equally so. An extremely disappointing piece of work.

‘Boys Own’ stuff! and not nearly as good as they think it is! Such a shame, it all started so well. Who done it? Who cares!

Dull, pseudo Sondheim! Andrew Garfield in the lead is so lacking in style or charisma it’s sad! I can’t think of anything positive to say about it at all. I kept watching in case it got better, but it didn’t!

Dear oh dear! It's all there: the tough as nails badly treated Poles, the young well educated young man turned into an officer in command of a battalion, a 'cor blimey ' lad giving him instructions of how to instruct his men, a pregnant songstress singing in front of all the enlisted men! (Very unlikely) Then we have poor Sean Bean making doe eyes at very posh Lesley Manville! Stereotypes listed and ticked off We even have a rather unpleasant naval rating, with about as much charm as a rattlesnake, who wants to go AWOL! They have spent very money on all the set pieces, shame about the individual characters! They're all doomed, Mr Mainwaring!

Superbly shot and visually extraordinary. Such a shame about a very thin script and storyline. What should have been a very moving film just wasn't! They second half was attempting too much and the surreal village scenes removed us from reality. Later the scene with the soldiers sitting listening to a lone singer was also so unlikely, we were left wondering why? The horrors of World War 1 were surprisingly rather lost in what was such a well made film. I think the cameo characters were far more effective than the protagonists and that may be the reason.

A classy film for grown ups - exceedingly good performances, well directed and intelligently written. What a welcome change! This is history in our lifetime on the screen.

Amazingly full of British actors, aren't there any young American actors? The film was about as close to late 19th century Massachusetts as my back garden!! Meryl Streep's character given lines she would never have uttered in a million years about Jo getting a job in a cat house!! Maybe it would have helped if the director knew some history of the east coast USA during the Civil War and the mores and manners if the time! These were never apparent! The film jumps about like a deranged rabbit! Poor Louisa May Alcott must be turning rapidly in her grave! Too much screeching and the sisters clutching each other all the time. Very touchy feely, but so out of touch with the period and consequently all the books. Why make Jo's husband a French playboy? Did the actress refuse to marry an older German portly teacher I the film, as per the novels?? Then the final insult, was the twee school at the end and all the very embarrassing jollities!! Please!! Poor Jo, what an insult to a interesting your woman, but that's in the book!!