Fine performances, but Lumet never figures out a way to either live within the stage confines or to open things up.

O'Neill's words sting when read aloud. It's very much in the vein of Lumet's other chamber dramas, where he tends to keep his camera more or less out of the way at first, but as it goes on it becomes more expressionistic. There's a foghorn which tolls incessantly in the last act, and the small and distant sound carries so much weight because Lumet can play his hand so subtly. It's nice to see the often underused Elliot Gould and Dean Stockwell given so much screentime.

Imperfect, but peaks powerfully in places.

I've watched most of Sidney Lumet's vast filmography, and this I am the least fond of. You can tell it's adapted from a play thanks to the heavy focus on dialogue. The trouble is, it's not a very good play. O'Neill's idea of drama is the gradual outing of the skeletons from the closet of his white-collar family, but the omnipresent dialogs are flat and unconvincing, making Long Day's Journey a dull and tedious one.

When it's good, it is goooooooood, but scenes without Hepburn drag endlessly. Three hours is just a bit too much for something this theatrically-grounded.