Film critic
Roger Ebert gave the film a mixed review, writing, "
Shadrach is a well-meaning film, directed by Susanna Styron from her father's autobiographical story. But without diminishing Shadrach's own determination and dignity (evoked in a minimalist, whispering performance by first-time actor Sawyer), it indulges in a certain sentimentality that is hard to accept in the dark weather stirred up by
Beloved. The movie even has Vernon Dabney wonder if the slaves weren't better off back when they had an assured place in the social order and got their meals on time; the movie does not adopt this view as its own and quietly corrects him. But I was left with a vision of Vernon trying to expound his theories to Sethe, the heroine of
Beloved, who would rather have a child dead in freedom than alive in slavery."
Los Angeles Times film critic
Kevin Thomas liked the film and wrote, "This flawless, deeply felt yet buoyant and graceful film marks Styron's feature directorial debut, after a varied career as a documentarian, writer and as an assistant to
Ken Russell on
Altered States and
Luis Buñuel on
That Obscure Object of Desire. That she herself has a Southern heritage, adapting (with Bridget Terry) her own celebrated father's story, surely gives the period-perfect
Shadrach its special resonance. A sympathetic
New York Times review by
Lawrence Van Gelder posited that "[I]n films like
The Grass Harp and today's arrival,
Shadrach, a generation raised in prosperity turns to a difficult past, suffuses it with a romantic glow and gazes with something like envy on its simple ways while tapping its people for insights into life's eternal verities, like death. On more than one level, the slight, sweet, sentimental
Shadrach is a labor of love by Susanna Styron, the film's director and co-writer, from an autobiographical tale by her father, William Styron, published in
Esquire in 1978."
Variety magazine film critic
Emanuel Levy had problems with the screenplay in his review, writing, "Susanna Styron and Bridget Terry's script, which extends to the limits a narrative that is basically a small, simple and poignant story, suffers from being both literal and literary. Indeed, were it not for the foul language used by the white trash but decent father,
Shadrach is the kind of well-intentioned picture that could easily have been made by Disney and comfortably play as an after-school special."
Reel Talk reviewer Donald Levit referred to the film's length as well as Martin Sheen's narration, "[R]unning times vary, from eighty-six to a hundred ten minutes, but even the latter, European print does not need this unseen presence looking back, setting scenes, and drawing a lesson learned (or not)." ==Evaluation in film guides==