Metacritic reviews

Reflections is a better film than we had any right to expect. It follows the McCullers story faithfully and without compromise. The performances are superb.

John Huston’s adaptation of Carson McCullers’ gothic novella of sexual repression, set in a Southern Army post, gave Taylor one of her most unusual roles. It’s a restrained, sensual performance with moments of high, if warped, comedy: an example of what a director with an original vision could elicit from her.

Overlooked on its initial release in 1967, Huston's adaptation of Carson McCullers's novel still feels unsettling and cutting-edge nearly 40 years later. [28 Sep 2006, p.26]

All in all, a superbly controlled exercise in the malevolent torments of despair.

The movie doesn't find a way to give us the emotional texture of the interrelationships and dependencies in the book (one can probably enjoy the film much more if one knows the book) but the principal actors (Marlon Brando, Brian Keith, Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Harris) were able to do some startling things with their roles.

The shame of it is that this conclusion is so anticlimactic and banal, because there is so much in the picture that seems to be leading to -- certainly prepares us to expect -- much more.

Either you like this movie a lot or you run screaming for the exit; I find it rough going.

A pretentious melodrama.

In a cast of hand-picked loons with ridiculous accents, only Brian Keith, as Taylor's thuggish lover, suggests a human being, while Brando gives perhaps his worst ever screen performance, not counting Christopher Columbus: The Discovery.

A weird picture based on a slim novel by Carson McCullers, this movie fails to engender any sympathy or interest due to several miscalculations.