Metacritic reviews

The Prince of Tides marks Ms. Streisand's triumphantly good job of locating that story's salient elements and making them come alive on the screen.

An assured and very serious love story that allows neither humor nor romance to get in the way of its deeper and darker subject.

Bringing her usual strengths of character to her role as Nolte’s psychiatrist/lover, Barbra Streisand marks every frame with the intensity and care of a filmmaker committed to heartfelt, unashamed emotional involvement with her characters.

Barbra Streisand's lovely adaptation of Pat Conroy's bestseller echoes the novel's seductive cadences, the cries of summer gulls, the slapping of the Atlantic on the South Carolina shores. An emotionally satisfying film, The Prince of Tides loses some of the stuff readers hold dear, but the pull of the sea, its saltiness too, lingers. As a story of rebirth through self-exploration, it seems ideally suited to this season of illumination.

The results may seem overripe and dated in spots, but she coaxes a fine performance out of Nolte, and the other actors (herself included) acquit themselves honorably.

Graced with fine performances and commendably biting off more than it can ever hope to chew, The Prince Of Tides is a rare slice of romantic moviemaking for all those grown-ups feeling ignored since Kramer Vs. Kramer last rattled their value systems. Best to take along your mother, a large box of hankies, and a hefty dose of salt.

The difference between The Prince of Tides and a movie like Ordinary People is that Streisand isn’t content with exploring human pain. She had to make it glamorous, too.

As star, director and co-producer, Streisand shifts the book's focus from the Wingo past to the Tom-Susan love affair. This could have worked had Streisand directed herself better--if, indeed, she had directed herself at all. Instead of a performance, we get smirks, poses, campy shots that linger on her outrageously long manicured fingernails, and radiant, cloying smiles. Streisand's inadequacies, though, are more than compensated for by Nolte's compelling Tom. He brings conviction and depth to the role, treading a fine line between self-pity and self-respect and exposing his frailties with a rare sensitivity.

They do make 'em like it any more.

Even the stalwart Nolte drowns in the laughable idiocy of the Wingo-Lowenstein love affair, which lifts Tides to the fiasco class.