Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
Evokes the march of history with a balance and restraint exhibited by few movies with such grand ambitions.

Name : Jordan Hoffman / Alias : New York Daily News
[D]elivers one rich and emotional scene after another

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
The World War I-set "Testament of Youth" makes a passionate and sensible case for [pacifism] through devastating, melancholy, persevering drama.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
This is World War I from a woman's point of view, a different perspective than we usually see. It's the story of someone who doesn't fight . but for whom the horrors of war are just as vivid and devastating.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
Tough-minded and sometimes harrowing.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
Vera Brittain's celebrated memoir of the British home front in World War I gets a polished Masterpiece Theatre treatment that fails to diminish the story's wrenching emotional content.

Name : Leslie Felperin / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Striking an elegantly sustained balance between intimacy and historical scope, director James Kent's WWI-set epic Testament of Youth encompasses nearly all of the virtues of classical British period drama and nearly none of the vices.

Name : Elaine Teng / Alias : The New Republic
Just once, it would be refreshing to see Britain look like something other than a country-living catalogue.

Name : Ella Taylor / Alias : NPR
Vikander crisply holds the screen as a naive rebel transformed by unspeakable suffering into a mature, independent young woman who remains open to the possibility of a new love and a rebuilt England.

Name : Marsha McCreadie / Alias : Village Voice
Without the epic sweep of a Doctor Zhivago, it's an intellectual and emotional landscape Vera traverses: grief to survival and, finally, pacifism.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
As Vera, the rebellious, moneyed young woman whose dream of graduating from Oxford is deferred when the war breaks out, Alicia Vikander is such a ferociously intuitive performer that you can't take your eyes off her.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Vikander and Harington provide the spark this World War I epic needs to get us through the tribulations and tragedies that pile on with numbing regularity.

Name : Linda Barnard / Alias : Toronto Star
This is Vikander's film and she is very good here.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
The film is elegantly done, mainly because it wisely expends most of its energy on Alicia Vikander's face.

Name : Keith Uhlich / Alias : AV Club
There's a good movie in Brittain's story, but you wouldn't know it from this lethargic, BBC-produced bore.

Name : Michael O'Sullivan / Alias : Washington Post
[Vikander's] performance is a subtle tour de force of feeling and restraint, made all the more remarkable by the whiplash highs and lows of this true but melodramatic tale.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
Kent presents the female experience of war with crisp, tactile practicality . Unabashedly romantic the film may be, but little about Brittain's grief-ridden personal awakening is needlessly romanticized.

Name : Nathalie Atkinson / Alias : Globe and Mail
In what is a well-acted but fairly typical prestige period drama, it's Vikander's nuanced performance as the resolute but still-vulnerable Vera who gives the film its depth.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
A beautifully acted but disappointingly stiff period drama.

Name : David Edelstein / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
Mournful, very fine .

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
From first to last, "Testament of Youth" sweeps you away.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
The book is still is in print to this day, selling like crumpets at high tea. The movie is a proud collation of its reflected glory. Don't miss it.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
We don't need movies to tell us war is hell. But at their best, they humanize its unfathomable losses in a way that history books never quite can.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
In World War I, a generation learned that war was not the answer. In World War II, another generation learned that pacifism was not the answer. It would seem that there just isn't an answer.

Name : Kristin Tillotson / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
Mulligan, in particular, delivers, bringing believability to a role that's quite a stretch, given the transformation her character has to go through from workaday mum to first-wave feminist superhero.

Name : Jocelyn Noveck / Alias : Associated Press
In Suffragette, which without [Mulligan] would be a far, far less compelling movie, she doesn't merely entertain us with her skill. She brings to vibrant life an important part of our global history that's easy to forget.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
From a historical perspective, Suffragette is riddled with inaccuracies, but that's less of a problem than its questionable dramatic arc.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
In minimizing the usual scenes that fill this sort of film - terribly awkward breakfasts at the country house, men wagging their chinwhiskers at each other - Gavron finds room for others.

Name : Connie Ogle / Alias : Miami Herald
Suffragette occasionally turns hard truths into platitudes. But the story is inspiring, buoyed by a fine cast, a pointed, important examination of the price paid for a shot at equality.

Name : Stephen Farber / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
A rousing, relevant slice of feminist history.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Variety
A picture whose politics prove rather more commendable than its artistry.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Suffragette expends its energy selling us on what we already believe rather than examining the way these activists pressed the world into believing it.

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Suffragette has the power to shock even those familiar with the early days of the feminist movement it dramatizes.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
In a sea of Hollywood escapism, Suffragette - flaws and all - is a movie that matters.

Name : Sarah Bryan Miller / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Morgan's writing is occasionally pedestrian, but the sweep of the story, the performances and Gavron's vision make up for it.

Name : Julia Cooper / Alias : Globe and Mail
Mulligan's performance, coupled with a solid script by Abi Morgan, shows us just how much is at stake when a woman decides to wage war.

Name : Inkoo Kang / Alias : TheWrap
"Suffragette" derives its considerable intellectual and emotional might from recognizing the symbolic nature of the vote. . That practical view makes the [film] not just an urgent history lesson but also a perceptive human drama.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
It riles you up and at times may move you to tears of rage.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
The movie does well to shine a light on the venerable struggle, but its beam is narrow, and often pallid.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
It's a shame that, despite some excellent performances, this urgent, well-intentioned film feels so conventional and stolid.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
If we now take a woman's right to vote and to hold public office for granted, Suffragette reminds us that it wasn't that long ago when things were different.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
It's a movie that's easier to respect than love, but it is something to respect.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
An intriguing premise dampened by thin characters and a formulaic story.

Name : Barbara VanDenburgh / Alias : Arizona Republic
Suffragette, like Maud, is modest in scope and ambition, and is more emotionally affecting for it.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
It's always compelling; you feel grateful, watching, that this story is being told at all.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"Suffragette" is an absorbing, ultimately moving portrait of thwarted ideals that rings all too true today.

Name : Karen D'Souza / Alias : San Jose Mercury News
"Suffragette" urges us to look at the dynamics of gender, class and power then and now with fresh eyes.

Name : Rex Reed / Alias : New York Observer
As a period piece, Suffragette captures and preserves the pulse and passion of a past era, yet strengthens the vibrant urgency of a cause that continues to inform the future.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Suffragette is easy to look at, populated by strong actors who move through a world furnished with lovely period detail, but it feels hollow at the centre.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
It depicts an important movement that remains relevant today as a historical obligation of a movie, dutiful and often surprisingly dull.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
It's a movie with a lot of things to say, but walking out, you feel like you're still waiting for it to say them.

Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
The script, by Abi Morgan, filters out the contextual complexities of politics, and Sarah Gavron's direction reduces difficult situations to simple sentiments.

Name : Ben Sachs / Alias : Chicago Reader
This period drama shows how awful it was to be a working-class woman at that time. [but] scenes dramatizing the political organizing and protests are less effective, bogged down by pedantic dialogue and historical generalizations.

Name : John Anderson / Alias : TIME Magazine
Yes, such things happened. Gavron's touch, though, renders them melodramatic.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Despite Mulligan bringing her A-game, the film falls short of its potential.

Name : Andrew O'Hehir / Alias : Salon.com
Gavron splits the difference between didactic history lesson and "relatable" storytelling without quite reaching either goal.

Name : Peter Rainer / Alias : Christian Science Monitor
[Mulligan is] a fiercely intelligent performer, and that suits her here. She gives some human weight to Maud's big moments, especially when they veer dangerously close to hokum.

Name : A.O. Scott / Alias : New York Times
Stirring and cleareyed - the best kind of history lesson.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
It's a tremendous, awards-worthy performance from Carey Mulligan.

Name : Sasha Stone / Alias : TheWrap
The supporting cast, including Helena Bonham Carter, Romola Garai and Anne-Marie Duff, are all top notch, and a reminder of how few films like this exist anywhere.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Though ably acted and indisputably on the side of the angels, "Suffragette" as directed by Sarah Gavron is more dead-on earnest and schematic than it needs to be.