4 August 2000, where it soon emerged as a small box-office surprise during the slow-seasoned summer. Having originally opened at 30 screens, it was eventually showing on more than 870 screens during its most successful weeks in early September 2000, when Saving Grace averaged takings of $3,351 per theatre - more than blockbusters such as X-Men and Hollow Man. It eventually grossed $26,330,482 worldwide. Critical response The critical response to the film was mixed. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 63% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 89 reviews, with an average score of 6/10. Its consensus states "the plot and basis for jokes are slight, but Saving Grace is indeed saved by some charming performances, most notably Brenda Blethyn's." On Metacritic, which uses a normalized rating system, the film holds a 62/100 rating, based on reviews from 32 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Jonathan Crow from AllMovie gave the film three out of five stars, calling it "wacky British comedy" with a "Waking Ned Devine (1998) meets Up in Smoke (1978)" effect. Peter Travers from Rolling Stone also called the film "a crowd-pleasing comedy in the tradition of The Full Monty and Waking Ned Devine." He wrote that "you know where this movie is going every step of the way. But Blethyn’s solid-gold charm turns Saving Grace into a comic high." Stephanie Zacharek, writing for Salon.com, called the film "a breezy and entertaining little charmer that works because it's not rendered on too precious a scale," and commented on Blethyn's performance: "She strikes the perfect tone, and her timing is right in the pocket." Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, stating that "the setup of Saving Grace is fun, and Blethyn helps by being not just a helpless innocent but a smart woman who depended too much on her husband and now quickly learns to cope." He criticised the film for its "more or less routine" ending: "We're left with a promising idea for a comedy, which arrives at some laughs but never finds its destination." Dana Stevens from The New York Times called the film "this summer's bait for the Anglophiles," meaning "that they're English and elderly apparently makes their antics screamingly funny to people who would turn up their noses at similar humor in a film like Scary Movie." In his review for San Francisco Chronicle Mick