After a couple of West End appearances and an illustrious film career, Keira Knightley made her Broadway debut this week in an adaptation of the Emile Zola novel Thérèse Raquin, about a pair of adulterous lovers who attempt to murder the woman’s husband at sea.

This is familiar ground for Knightley following her work in Anna Karenina, but the critical consensus is that she and her fellow cast members can’t whip up the required atmosphere of sexual tension and frustrated passion. The Guardian’s Alexis Soloski wrote that Knightley “seems oddly flat ... [director Evan Cabnet] seems like he would rather be directing a film. Scenes fade in and out; far too many moments show Thérèse looking on languishingly.” And other critics weren’t much more effusive – though her performance had a few fans.

Ben Brantley, New York Times

The show is so determined to demonstrate how destiny never relaxes its stranglehold on its characters that any sparks of pleasure are snuffed out almost before they appear ... Thérèse Raquin is curiously lacking in tension of any kind. It is steeped, instead, in a single shade of morbid resignation ... [Knightley’s is] a disciplined and determined Expressionist performance. But it feels, well, unnatural in a work based on a pioneering novel of naturalism.”

Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

Thérèse Raquin is a dreary hambone that once was shocking but is now quaint, and Helen Edmundson has done no better by Zola. The pacing is arthritic ... As for Ms Knightley, she gives the kind of flat, underprojected performance you’d expect from an untrained Broadway debutante with limited stage experience.”

Brendan Lemon, Financial Times

Madame Raquin’s reactions to the lovers provide startling moments. Paralysed by a stroke, she must rely on facial expressions to register her disgust at their hypocrisy ... Knightley invests Thérèse with a splendid abandon but her line readings can lack variety, and overall this production casts too few sparks.”

The Telegraph

Resembles a vaguely ponderous sequence of set-up shots or tableaux for some hypothetical film of the same material ... Knightley’s commitment to this latest part is never in doubt ... she communicates the sullen intensity of a woman not easily given over to cheer.”

Judith Light, Keira Knightley, and Matt Ryan at the curtain call for Thérèse Raquin. Photograph: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

Joe Dziemianowicz, New York Daily News

There’s enough real water in Thérèse Raquin to float a row boat, but not a drop of sexual tension. Without high heat and funky musk, this wannabe erotic thriller starring Keira Knightley is bloodless and all wet ... Director Evan Cabnet relies on disembodied voices and eerie sound effects to show the pair’s haunted minds. Just in time for Halloween, Thérèse Raquin and the A-list actress playing her have found themselves stranded in a corny spookhouse. Scary.”

Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

Knightley gives it her all and she’s wonderful as she goes from odd duck to lip-quivering lust ... Director Evan Cabnet has encouraged the humour, passion and the horror but all those elements stewing together over the two-and-a-half hour play eventually start to spoil. The horror doesn’t really stay sustained, the love curdles oddly and the humor breaks the momentum of both. Some of the worst sound effects heard on Broadway don’t help.”

Jesse Green, Vulture

[Knightley] is compelling and articulate, especially when silent, and brings to the morose tale the banked-fire quality that seems to illuminate such material from within. Which is a good thing, since it isn’t much illuminated from without ... The production gets just about everything right ... But no skill anyone might apply can reverse the trajectory of a story that dries up just when it gets juicy.”

Marylin Stasio, Variety

Although Evan Cabnet’s hammy direction of the first act does elicit uncomfortable laughter, the physical production is exquisite, and by the end of the act the performers have found the raw passion to leave the audience gasping ... Knightley and Ryan are ravishing — and articulate — as these fierce bourgeois Macbeths, undone by their own greed and passion.”

Elysa Gardner, USA Today

The most nuanced humanity here comes from Judith Light’s splendid, haunting performance as Madame Raquin ... Through it all, Knightley suffers radiantly, and without a trace of vanity.”

‘Tormented monster’... Keira Knightley in Thérèse Raquin. Photograph: Joan Marcus/2015 Joan Marcus

Robert Kahn, NBC New York

Knightley, the English actress with such admirable range, is fine as the title character, something of a caged animal who makes a brutal grasp for true love... Thérèse Raquin generates a strong sense of dread, and on that level it’s both a somber and engaging piece of stagecraft.”

David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

Helen Edmundson’s adaptation is a mixed bag, falling into traps that may be unavoidable in any literal treatment of this material for contemporary audiences ... Knightley is riveting as the volatile Thérèse broods over the consequences of her deeds, scrambling to show her tortured loyalty to Madame while shifting the blame. But there’s never a lot of emotional investment in anyone on stage.”

Robert Hofler, The Wrap

When Knightley is able to inject humour into a performance, as she does in The Imitation Game, the results are marvellous. When she’s wholly dramatic, as in Anna Karenina or this Thérèse Raquin, she’s monotonous.”

Alexandra Villarreal, Huffington Post

Keira Knightley brilliantly embodies this tormented monster ... For the first 30 minutes, Knightley barely talks ... but her performance is more immediate than any words.”

Jeremy Gerard, Deadline