Stanley Kauffmann

“Jackson did Stevie on the London stage, and with her as the lion aunt was Mona Washbourne, who is with her again in the film. In all the shouting, so well deserved, about Jackson, please, please let us not overlook Washbourne. This is fine character acting by a fine character actress at the apex of a long career: exquisitely controlled, beautifully selected, timed impeccably, utterly inhabited. See her in the doorway when Stevie is helped out of a taxi after her suicide attempt. See her--after her earlier scenes of marcelled hair and perfect composure--as illness encroaches, in her dressing gown, with one loose tendril of hair, making her way fearfully to her easy chair. It's an actor's poem about the passage of time.”

Stanley Kauffmann
The New Republic, July 25, 1981