Dominick and Eugene

Reception[edit]

The film received positive reviews, holding a 78% rating on the film-review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews. The consensus summarizes: "Thanks to strong performances and a steady directorial hand, Dominick and Eugene successfully navigates potentially tricky themes in thoughtful, compelling fashion without resorting to trite sentimentality."^[3]


In a positive review, Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times commented the film "is drama nudged uneasily into melodrama by the events of its last quarter. What keeps it on the side of the angels are the warmth of the writing, especially in the crucial early scenes that set the boys' relationship; the depth and wonderment with which Hulce imbues Nicky, making him unworldly and sweet but never cloying, and the deep emotions tapped by Hulce and Liotta as these loving brothers."^[4]


Janet Maslin of The New York Times said: "As directed by Robert M. Young, Dominick and Eugene has a refreshing plainness and a welcome unwillingness to milk the story for more pathos than is warranted. It examines the brothers' growing realization that, at 26, they must become more independent of one another. But it accomplishes this by means of genuinely involving plot developments, along with a rather startling denouement. The screenplay by Alvin Sargent and Corey Blechman, from a story by Danny Porfirio, might seem more frankly manipulative were it not for the mutual love and concern conveyed by the two stars."^[5]


Desson Thomson of The Washington Post wrote, "Robert M. Young's 'Dominick and Eugene' wraps itself up neat as a button, but until that time Young produces an absorbingly messy blue-collar, white-collar Pittsburgh melodrama."^[6]