"The Village Voice" said it was full of "half-hearted melodramatics and schmaltzy bromides". According to some TripleCast viewers, this made the main NBC coverage seem "schmaltzy and overproduced". Nichols disliked the album's "schmaltzy ballads" the most. AllMusic described this song, along with the title song, as "crafty/schmaltzy ballads". Similarly, Melissa Mairz of "Entertainment Weekly" thought that it was a "schmaltzy power ballad". The journalist Jane O'Grady called the work "disappointingly schmaltzy" in "The Guardian". Leonard Maltin felt it was a "genuine if schmaltzy" adaptation of the novel. But just when one fears that the film might become schmaltzy, the film-maker takes control.