it received generally positive reviews from critics and has a score of 70% on rotten tomatoes from 30 reviews. the site's consensus states: ""steel magnolias" has jokes and characters to spare, which makes it more dangerous (and effective) when it goes for the full melodrama by the end." an example of a less enthusiastic critic was hal hinson of "the washington post", who said that it felt, "more hollywood than the south." more enthusiastic was roger ebert, who said that the film was, "willing to sacrifice its over-all impact for individual moments of humor, and while that leaves us without much to take home, you've got to hand it to them: the moments work."the film received a score of 56 based 13 critics on metacritic with "mixed or average reviews".