Complex sentence: Roger Ebert ranked the film as one of the best of the year and assessed Hoffman's performance as "a masterpiece of discipline and precision", but arguably due to its unpleasant nature it earned little at the box office.
Split into simpler sentences: Roger Ebert ranked the film as one of the best of the year and assessed Hoffman's performance as "a masterpiece of discipline and precision". Critics were generally kind to the production, but its unpleasant nature meant it earned little at the box office.