A sympathetic "New York Times" review by Lawrence Van Gelder posited that "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."