Pauline Kael

“. . . . [I]t's also a women's picture in a new way: Gillian Armstrong . . . has the technique and the assurance to put a woman't fluid, not fully articulated emotions right onto the screen. And she has an actress--Judy Davis, the Sybylla of My Brilliant Career and the Adela Quested of David Lean's A Passage to India--who's a genius at moods….”

Lilli is so overcast--so unsure of herself--that we feel a mystery in her, despite her level gaze. Tall, skinny, red-haired Judy Davis was only twenty-three when she played her first leading role onscreen--in My Brilliant Career, in 1979. She may never have looked as beautiful as she does here in a motel-room scene with Colin Friels: he's lying on the bed, and she's standing by the window with her wavy hair wet from the shower. She's like a sea goddess . . . .

. . . . The acute, well-written script acknowledges the basic ineffableness of some experiences, especially in a self-conscious scene toward the end where Lilli tries to explain to Ally why she deserted her. And it all goes together. It goes with the way Lilli looks when she's about to leave town and abandon her daughter for the second time; paying off the garage mechanic and thanking him, she's white as death. Judy Davis has been compared with Jeanne Moreau, and that's apt, but she's Moreau without the cultural swank, the high-fashion gloss . . . .

Pauline Kael
February 22, 1988
Hooked, pp 432-435