I Am Not Madame Bovary

All in all this is quite something, gradually building to a jawdropping final scene.

It's a pleasure to look at the screen and to watch the artistry of the entire creative team. But there's a forbidding quality to the entire enterprise.

The shapes are a distraction. However, what's happening within them is compelling enough to overcome the stylistic overkill.

Although it's intended as a satire, director Feng Xiaogang's movie has a literary tone, a leisurely pace and relatively few laugh-out-loud moments.

The script by Liu Zhenyun becomes ponderous and redundant, kept on oxygen by its lead actress's complex performance as a child-woman with enigmatic wisdom.

It's like an odd storybook you'd find in the attic and have trouble putting down - the more quixotic Lian's journey becomes, the more you want her to see it through to the bitter end.

Bingbing heads a terrific ensemble, although the sly anti-bureaucratic fun does feel a little overextended at 137mins.

[An] overstretched art-house soap.

The film is uneven and lagging in pace. Still, it's frequently beautiful ...

As the second half of the film essentially repeats the action, only years later, the film's pace becomes sluggish, and its impact rapidly deflates. The artful charm of Feng's stylistic choices also begin to feel limiting.

A film that luxuriates, through that beguiling round frame, in breathtaking, never-seen-before screen imagery.