The Vintner's Luck

"New Zealand writer-director Niki Caro delivers her least impressive vintage with this drearily literal-minded adaptation of "The Vintner's Luck," Elizabeth Knox's novel about a 19th-century French peasant who receives celestial guidance in matters of love and winemaking. It's one of those ambitious grand-summation works -- rooted in the bittersweet truism that life, like wine, grows richer with age -- but not even Caro's earthy, sensuous filmmaking can overcome the tale's glib supernatural conceit, overstated moral lessons and overall dramatic torpor."

"The dreary, rambling narrative, the trite theme, the unconscionably long running time combine to make a major disappointment."

"It was an ambitious project to adapt this tale, and while it’s in no way a failure, it’s certainly not a triumph."

"Very silly and incoherent melodrama gets tangled up in the wings of an angel."

"The Vintner's Luck is good to look at, and a few scenes hint at the film I think the book, and we, deserved. But the rest is a baffling"