AllMovie

See Home Before Dark for Jean Simmons' shimmering, beautiful portrayal -- but be prepared to be frustrated. Simmons alone makes Home worth seeing, but it's a movie that leaves one feeling unfulfilled. One watches it with expectations, anticipating that at any moment the movie is going to kick into a higher gear and reach a satisfying pay-off. And it's true that, structurally, the film makes sense and that it's beginning, middle and end technically work. But it doesn't provide the emotional kick that it keeps striving for, nor does it provide as in-depth and close a look at its characters as it thinks it does. It is, in some way, a "flirt" of a movie, promising more and raising one's hopes and expectations, but never fulfilling them. The same cannot be said of Simmons, who is all that one could ask for in the role -- although the blonde wig is perhaps not such a good idea. Hair aside, there's nothing to fault with the actress, who clearly has an iron grasp on this fragile characters and who illuminates facets of the character that would otherwise probably never have even existed. The rest of the cast is fine, perhaps even a bit more than fine; but it's Simmons who owns the picture, from the first frame to the last.