Black Butterflies
Black Butterflies Image
Metascore
66 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critics What's this?

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  • Summary: Poetry, politics, madness, and desire collide in the true story of the woman hailed as South Africa's Sylvia Plath. In 1960s Cape Town, as Apartheid steals the expressive rights of blacks and whites alike, young Ingrid Jonker finds her freedom scrawling verse while frittering through a series of stormy affairs. Amid escalating quarrels with her lovers and her rigid father, a parliament censorship minister, the poet witnesses an unconscionable event that will alter the course of both her artistic and personal lives. (Tribeca Film)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    Mar 1, 2012
    90
    In its jagged style and tone Black Butterflies is as close to an inside-out view of Jonker's tumultuous life as a movie could go without sinking into chaos. Its hues are continuously changing, and the seaside weather around Cape Town reflects her tempestuous emotional life.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Ronnie Scheib
    Feb 26, 2012
    80
    The uncompromising power of Ingrid Jonker's poetry runs like a pulsing vein through Black Butterflies.
  3. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Jordan Mintzer
    Feb 26, 2012
    80
    Paula van der Oest's biopic of South African poet Ingrid Jonker is conventional yet captivating thanks in large part to a terrific lead performance from Carice van Houten.
  4. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Keith Uhlich
    Feb 28, 2012
    60
    Carice van Houten (Black Book) is superb as the emotionally unstable Jonker - all manically beaming highs and depressively gloomy lows, a tempestuous force of nature in a movie that too often plays it blandly polite.

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