Metacritic reviews

It’s an elegantly pleasurable period thriller, a film of tidy precision and class.

Best known as the screenwriter of such subtext-rich adaptations as “The Wings of the Dove” and “Drive,” Amini excels at conveying the subtle, unspoken tensions between characters, selecting a tightrope-risky example with which to make his directorial debut and orchestrating it with aplomb.

A superior directorial debut for a smart, literate screenwriter delivers both first-class character drama and edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Dunst handles her sidekick role with a mature ease that’s new to her, but it’s the men you remember: Mortensen in psychological freefall and Isaac always tough to read and hiding something behind a handsome, controlled exterior. It’s a gentle and smart blast from the past.

On his first trip behind the camera, the British-Iranian Amini shows his skill at working with actors and sensing the way they can fill out literary characters. His screenplay generally feels more naturalistic than Highsmith, the dialogue less spare.

Amini's directorial debut is a quiet and graceful achievement that suffers from a number of shortcomings but still works on its own terms.

There are many attractive parts to this thriller – handsome leads, a meaty Patricia Highsmith plot, Mediterranean sunlight on cream linen suits – but it's no greater than the sum of them.

Amini’s film offers elegant pleasures and holds the interest – but it never grips as it should.

It's a sterile affair, no ambiguity, no ambivalence, just people doing one thing and then another.

Amini has proven his narrative acumen before and will undoubtedly do so again, but his inaugural stint behind the camera offers only fleeting glimpses of Highsmith's seductive, satirical prose that old hands such as Clément, Hitchcock and Minghella have so notably put to good use.