--- title: "The Draughtsman's Contract: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-draughtsmans-contract/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/the-draughtsmans-contract" critics_score: 77 critics_reviews: 10 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # The Draughtsman's Contract (1982): what the critics said Critics' score 77 from 10 reviews: 9 positive, 1 mixed, 0 negative. Most critics respond warmly to The Draughtsman’s Contract, with praise clustering around its barbed dialogue, painterly compositions and elaborate period costumes. The reviews find that Greenaway’s carefully arranged landscapes and verbal sparring make the country-house mystery funny and unsettling, with social cruelty beneath the polite manners. Many also welcome the demands it makes on its audience, treating its clues and unanswered questions as invitations to look more closely rather than obstacles to enjoyment. The reservations concern how far that pleasure survives the film’s mannered storytelling, though the spread runs from enthusiasm to qualified approval rather than outright rejection. The AV Club finds it rewarding as a patterned puzzle but less successful as a straightforward narrative, while Empire praises the plot’s construction. The New Yorker offers the clearest dissent, suggesting that the superior tone can become boring and that the violence jars with the comedy’s artifice. ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 14 December 2012. The film is a tantalizing puzzle wrapped in eroticism and presented with utmost elegance. Greenaway gives viewers clues to a complex story of plots and murder but leaves them to draw their own conclusions rather than spelling everything out. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-draughtsmans-contract-1982) ## The New York Times — Vincent Canby Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 22 June 1983. The film is cinema's first Restoration comedy-mystery, an enigmatic tale of murder set in 1694 with loose morals and mannered behavior. Greenaway creates a detailed, elegant, and mindbendingly rich picture of the period through words as weapons and lush landscapes. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/22/movies/film-the-draughtsman-s-contract.html) ## The Guardian — Peter Bradshaw Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 10 November 2022. Greenaway’s arch tale of sexual and political manipulation has not lost its power to bewilder and compel after 40 years. The critic praises its singular brilliance, bizarre vehemence and intensity, and refusal to dumb anything down. [Read the review](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/10/the-draughtsmans-contract-review-cerebral-intrigue-still-compels-peter-greenaway) ## Little White Lies — Finlay Spencer Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 12 November 2022. The critic celebrates the film as a fresh and funny blueprint for modern period pieces thanks to its acerbic script and anachronistic flourishes. They single out the witty, barbed dialogue and the painterly visual style blended with new-wave influences. [Read the review](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/the-draughtsmans-contract-peter-greenaway-period-movie) ## Empire — Alan Morrison Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 2000. The critic presents the film as enjoyable both as a country-house murder mystery with Restoration trappings and for its playfully significant formal structure. A well-constructed plot is singled out as a strength. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/draughtsman-contract-review/) ## Slant Magazine — Jeremiah Kipp Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 22 January 2008. The film is a fledgling attempt at Greenaway's later perfected style, told through obsessive long-take tableaus that feel like diving into a painting. There is a story and mystery here that prevents the director from indulging in his sometimes alienating proclivities, resolved with merciless efficiency. [Read the review](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-draughtsmans-contract/) ## The AV Club — Tasha Robinson Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 13 February 2008. Contract is a sordid and gorgeous bridge between Greenaway's experimental films and his narrative period, with elaborate costumes and beautiful landscapes contrasting the characters' blunt brutality. It often feels like an inexact bridge, too mannered to take in as a straightforward narrative but rewarding as an elaborately patterned puzzle box. [Read the review](https://www.avclub.com/the-draughtsmans-contract-a-zed-and-two-noughts-1798203762) ## Variety Fi1m's normalised score 70/100 (inferred from the text). 1 January 1982. The film seems a comedy of manners but reveals underlying viciousness among the rich that foreshadows upheavals. It is well-lensed with fine costumes, lovely surroundings, and a limpid narration that switches from observation of the landed class to a foreboding tale of murder. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1981/film/reviews/the-draughtsman-s-contract-1200425099/) ## The New Yorker — Pauline Kael Fi1m's normalised score 60/100 (inferred from the text). 15 August 1983. The film is a formalist tease and fantasia of conceits about perspective, the artist, his art, and the world, with a suggestion of Antonioni’s Blow-Up in its clues and murder plot. The sudden burst of Jacobean violence disrupts the Restoration-comedy artifice, and the superior tone may bore some viewers. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1983/08/22/framed-2) ## Eye for Film — The Hoodler Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 24 February 2004. The critic calls the film a sublime piece of filmmaking, elegant and visually exquisite with opulent costumes, grandeur, and landscaped beauty. They praise its deft composition like paintings, witty comedy that makes it accessible, and deeper layers of social critique beneath the surface mystery. [Read the review](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/the-draughtsmans-contract-film-review-by-the-hoodler) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/the-draughtsmans-contract.md