20
Repellent piece of garbage.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Chicago Reader by Andrea Gronvall
The melodrama form allows Tornatore to examine such current issues as human trafficking and black-market babies within a yarn that, for all its sentiment, is never less than gripping.
50
It's an exceptionally well-made example of the kind of delirious, semi-Gothic, overcooked melodrama filmmakers from the Boot have long specialized in.
70
Brings peaks of violence and suspense to the vivid story of a young East European prostitute-turned-cleaning lady intent on carrying out a mysterious mission in Italy.
80
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
Sweet, however, are the uses of melodrama in the skilled hands of Tornatore, for he transcends the lurid and the coincidental with range, depth and insight, and a bold, confident, suspenseful style, to create a fable of love and redemption.
75
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Russian-born Xenia Rappoport gives it her tragic-heroine all as an abused Ukraine prostitute-turned-sneaky housemaid in Italy in The Unknown Woman.
63
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
The film is flat-out gorgeous and contains moments of sheer lunacy.
50
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
The movie's one flaw is this: The whole movie hangs on the gradual unraveling of the central mystery and is made with the expectation that the audience is fascinated and hanging on every tidbit.
58
Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer
Rappoport is a powerhouse performer but the movie is an unstable concoction of political melodrama, film noir, and weepie.
60
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Ms. Rappoport’s sturdy performance helps keep this outlandish melodrama from collapsing into unintended comedy.