SOURCE: Kauffmann, Stanley. “Hello from Hollywood.” New Republic 220, no. 3 (18 January 1999): 26.

In the following review, Kauffmann discusses Hurlyburly as a reflection of contemporary American morality.

The time capsule will be chock full. If such a capsule is arranged in the year 2000 to be opened a century later, and if it includes a fair sampling of films that reflect the moral climate of our time, it's going to be crowded. American films about American morals have been plentiful from the beginning, but as the century ends, the graph line is climbing. Just in recent months we've had Happiness and Your Friends and Neighbors and Very Bad Things and Bad Manners, among others. Now there's Hurlyburly (Fine Line).

If it's argued that these films reflect only a small portion of the population—about as un-Heartland as one could get—it can be countered that this is the way that our time...