"[8] Guy Lodge of Variety wrote "This good, middlebrow adaptation of John Banville's Booker Prize-novel sacrifices structural intricacy for Masterpiece-style emotional accessibility."

In a uniformly strong cast, a superbly terse Cusack cuts that little bit deeper as a dying woman who understandably has no time for her husband’s hovering pain.

Niki Boyle of Film List, a Scottish web magazine, gave the film two out of five stars and said that "Hinds and Rampling are suitably low-key, and character actor Karl Johnson puts in a decent turn as a more poignant version of The Major from Fawlty Towers, but the whole thing feels utterly derivative, from the contrast between the muted-palette and light-saturated flashbacks, to the spare, mournful piano-and-violin score.

"[11] Ross Miller of Thoughts on Film gave it 1 out of 5 stars, saying that, "What could have been a fascinating and melancholic look at memory, regret and loss is actually a boring and monotonous character drama... a pretentious mess that's a chore to sit through.

"[12] Emma Thrower of The Hollywood News also gave film a negative review by saying that "A frustrating blend of wooden and naturalistic, it is a surprise to realise author John Banville is responsible for a screenplay that often unfolds like an overblown television drama.