59
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanIt’s both a highly entertaining movie and, by the end, a haunting one. It revels in Dalí’s artifice even as it mercilessly peels away his layers.
- 80TheWrapMartin TsaiTheWrapMartin TsaiIt’s based on historical facts and real-life characters, yet it feels timeless and allegorical. It’s indisputably Harron’s best, and she deftly locates stately classicism amid the crass and the banal, and vice versa.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeThe Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeMary Harron’s Dalíland revolves around the titular Surrealist, played with restraint and dignity by Ben Kingsley, while gently nudging the spotlight in the direction of his complicated wife/muse Gala, a role in which Barbara Sukowa more than earns the movie’s attention.
- 70Film ThreatAndy HowellFilm ThreatAndy HowellIt raises interesting questions about cults of personality, our inability to deal with aging, and how we can use the people around us to get what we want. That’s not exactly surrealism, nor is it realism. It’s just Hollywood.
- 70The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisWhile Dalíland occasionally edges into caricature, its take on Gala’s role in the marriage, her temperament and feverish attention to money is happily more complicated.
- 63Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreSukowa makes a fine villain, one among many “using” Dali. But Kingsley is the reason to visit Daliland, allowing us to “be in the presence…of genius” and be irritated, titillated, amused and maybe a little depressed about the trap our imperious host has flounced into and embraced as the doom he dreads but so feverishly craves.
- 50IndieWireKatie RifeIndieWireKatie RifeFor all its promises of an inside look into the Dalís’ lifestyle, the film never does much more than document it.
- 50Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonDaliland dials up the actorly pyrotechnics, but it’s all spectacle without insight, failing to lay a foundation for why this long-running marriage, despite its volatility, endured.
- 42The PlaylistJason BaileyThe PlaylistJason BaileyMary Harron is too good a director to make a drab, conventional biopic, so it’s disappointing to report that with Dalíland, she’s done just that. It’s not a complete waste, and she manages to insert a handful of distinctive flourishes and memorable characters. But the picture never escapes the box it’s been placed in or transcends a key, fundamental error in its conception.