Roger Ebert Gave A Perfect Rating To This Neve Campbell Drama That Most Critics Despised

"When Will I Be Loved" is a 2004 film that pretty much everyone hated ... except Roger Ebert. The movie was written and directed by James Toback, who was also responsible for "The Pick-Up Artist," a Robert Downey Jr. and Molly Ringwald-led rom-com that Ebert absolutely savaged. In 2025, Toback was ordered to pay $1.68 billion to 40 women who accused him of sexual abuse (per Variety). As such, winning over Ebert with an erotic drama hardly does much to change his legacy. But unlike Toback, Ebert does have a considerable legacy, and if he had a contrarian opinion, it was usually worth paying attention to.

As far as Michael O'Sullivan of the Washington Post was concerned, "When Will I Be Loved" was a film that very quickly "collapsed under the weight of its own pretension." Indeed, his view represented the larger critical response to the movie, as critics really weren't fond of Toback's erotic flick in general (which, in hindsight, is probably for the best).

The film stars Neve Campbell as a young New York woman who explores her own sexuality after becoming bored with her hustler boyfriend. For Ebert, this, along with her part in Robert Altman's "The Company," was a "breakthrough role" for the actor, which helped move her "out of the 'Scream'-queen category" and allow her to "grow." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com, on the other hand, felt that "the whole picture seem[ed] coated with a slimy sheen of drool."

Roger Ebert had some wild opinions in his time. He loved the widely-hated Harrison Ford action comedy "Hollywood Homicide" and was so fond of Samuel L. Jackson's mediocre thriller "Lakeview Terrace" he gave it a perfect score. But "When Will I Be Loved" is a curious entry in the dissenting Ebert arguments compendium. For the critic, James Toback's film was "like a jazz solo that touches familiar themes on its way to a triumphant and unexpected conclusion." It's a view that put Ebert so at odds with other critics that it's sort of baffling even after reading his full review.

"When Will I Be Loved" centers on Vera Barrie (Neve Campbell) whose hustler boyfriend, Ford Welles (Frederick Weller), isn't quite fulfilling her needs. So, Vera starts having affairs — lots of them. Ford, however, sees an opportunity and concocts a scheme to sell Vera's sexual services to an Italian count named Tommaso (Dominic Chianese) for $100,000. Incredibly, Vera agrees. But all is not as it seems, as Campbell's calculating temptress has a plan of her own.

For Ebert, Campbell's performance was a big part of the film's appeal. He described it as "carnal, verbally facile, physically uninhibited, and charged with intelligence," noting that "not many actresses could have played this character, and fewer still could give us the sense she's making it up as she goes along." That is, unless they were literally making it up as they went along. Quite literally, Campbell told Ebert in a separate piece that the movie's script was just 35 pages long and "a lot of it was improvised." Perhaps unsurprisingly, most critics didn't love that aspect of the film ... or, for that matter, any other aspect.

According to Roger Ebert, James Toback wrote "When Will I Be Loved" for Neve Campbell "because he was obsessed with her," which, in light of more recent developments, doesn't really help the film's case. Of course, Ebert didn't think it needed help. The critic was hugely impressed with not only Campbell but what he described as a "spellbinding" third act in which "Vera distributes justice and revenge and adapts to the unexpected and creates, spontaneously and in the moment, a checkmate." All of this leads to what Ebert dubbed a "perfect ending."

He was, however, the only critic to use the word "perfect" in relation to this film, as its 32% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes should give you some idea of how his peers felt about "When Will I Be Loved." As Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe wrote, "Most atrocious movies build into their badness, as lacks of talent, ideas, self-confidence, or a total hatred of an audience, are revealed. This one gets it out of the way up front." Elsewhere, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly was just as critical when she described Toback's film as "a ripe psychosexual compost heap of a drama that emits a provocative scent of rot and nonsense."

Even the critics who liked the film couldn't quite bring themselves to match Ebert's effusiveness, which just makes his opposing take all the more compelling. And much like his negative view of the acclaimed sci-fi horror cult classic "The Thing," it's not entirely clear how he could have diverged so drastically from other critics. Still, if you want to try to figure it out for yourself, "When Will I Be Loved" is available to rent from the usual platforms.