So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 42 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
14 OK for kids 14+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 70
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    So strong are the emotions - and, yes, the melodrama - that Snow Flower and the Secret Fan represents one of Wang's best films to date. Read full review

  • 63
    Philadelphia Inquirer | Carrie Rickey

    The connection between the two time frames and stories (the contemporary one with the addition of screenwriters) is flimsy as a frayed rope bridge, forced as the stepsister's foot into Cinderella's glass slipper. Read full review

  • 63
    Miami Herald | Connie Ogle

    Snow Flower and the Secret Fan moves slowly, languidly; its art direction is often lovely, and despite their truncated screen time Lily and Snow Flower do make you care about their fates. But you would have cared more without all the distraction. Read full review

  • 55
    Movieline | Stephanie Zacharek

    To invoke Pauline Kael's review of Diane Kurys's "Entre Nous," it's about two women not having a lesbian affair. Read full review

  • 50
    Boston Globe | Wesley Morris

    It's hard to tell whether this is a tribute to female solidarity or a lamentation. Read full review

  • 50
    Wall Street Journal | Joe Morgenstern

    While the action flashes back and forth in increments of centuries, years or months, we're adrift in the here and now, trying to get a grip on the characters and their relationships, yet finding it loosened with every new dislocation. Read full review

  • 50
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    The lesson of the lovely-looking, but disappointing, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is avoid tinkering too much with a novelist's work. Read full review

  • 40
    New York Daily News | Joe Neumaier

    Unfortunately, its present-day tale, involving a career woman seeking to mend her 20-year bond with a girlfriend injured in an accident, is lax and clunky, and its story-within-a-story - a tale of two laotong, or soul sisters, in oppressive mid-1800s China - is gorgeous but simplistic. Read full review

  • 33
    Entertainment Weekly |

    Sadly, rather than melding the best of two worlds, the film only takes the worst of their soap operas. Read full review

  • 25
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    This latest from director Wayne Wang, about the friendship of two young women, travels from 2011 to 1997 to 1829 to 1838, in search of a reason for the audience to keep watching and start caring. That reason is never found. Read full review

View more reviews for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says OK for kids 14+ Disappointing literary adaptation has some heavy themes.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this book-based drama set in both present-day and 19th-century China explores complicated but sustaining friendships among women. In some ways, it's an uplifting tale that teens might find interesting, but the storytelling is uneven, and some themes/plot lines -- opium addiction, persecution, pervasive repression of women -- may be too intense for younger viewers. There's some drinking and period-accurate substance abuse; one scene of a married couple having sex shows a man atop a woman, with his naked back visible.
  • Families can talk about how the movie depicts repressive practices like foot binding. How did it affect women in China? What repercussions did it have? What does the movie say about the treatment of women, both in the past and today?
  • What does the movie say about female friendships? How do they compare to romantic relationships?
The good stuff
  • message true2 Positive messages: Women give each other support and friendship that sustains them through strained marriages and tragedies in a society that doesn't consider them equals to their husbands, fathers, and brothers.
  • rolemodels true1 Positive role models: For the most part, the women are portrayed in a positive light. Though they may not always make the kindest or most empathetic decisions, they nevertheless arrive at them from a place of concern and love. On the other hand, the men, with the exception of possibly one character, seem controlling, opportunistic, or both. Sometimes, they're even cruel.
What to watch for
  • violence false2 Violence: A man drags his wife off and hits her -- viewers don't see much of the actual beating, though she's shown with bruises and a puffy face afterward. A character is hospitalized after a bike accident. References to war and the chaos and despair it creates. Some yelling. Pervasive repression of women pervades the storyline; women's feet are bound when they're kids, hobbling them both literally and figuratively.
  • sex false2 Sexy stuff: A husband and wife have sex; viewers see a man on top of a woman, his naked back visible. Some grunting and moaning. Another man kisses a woman's bound feet. References to a character getting a girl pregnant. One passionate kiss.
  • language false0 Language: Not an issue
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: A man is shown getting high on an opium pipe. Some social drinking in restaurants and bars; two women get inebriated after taking shots.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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