Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 6 Ratings

  • Summary: Forty Shades of Blue tells the story of Laura, a young Russian woman living in Memphis with a much older rock n' roll legend, and the personal awakening she experiences in the wake of her unfortunate affair with his estranged son. (First Look Pictures)
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 16
  2. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. Reviewed by: Kate Taylor
    100
    Delicate, intelligent and honest.
  2. 80
    Investing a lot of time on each corner of his three-sided character piece, director Ira Sachs (who co-wrote the film with Michael Rohatyn) has created a film as dramatically intense as it is opaque.
  3. 80
    This is still powerful, undiluted stuff -- a jolt of backwoods moonshine whiskey injected into the veins of the atrophied American relationship drama.
  4. It's Korzun's film, and she is in complete control of her character, never divulging too much of the haunted woman under the studied facade of American hotsiness.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 1 out of 3
  1. FranciscoM.
    10
    Rip Torn gives an amazing performance. I really enjoyed the film.
  2. BrianC.
    9
    Dynamite acting pulls this several notches above the pack.. Rip Torn is memorable.
  3. JohnB.
    2
    I can't imagine how this film received so many good reviews. (best drama at Sundance-you must be kidding!) It is a really thin, depressing little story that goes nowhere. The relationships between the characters are not in any way believable or interesting, and even the sex scenes were poorly done. [***SPOILERS***] The final scene was representative of the entire film-the female lead walks away from the car-no resolution, no closure, no reason to know what will happen to the characters, and even worse, no reason to care.The director is obviously new at filmaking, and needs more experience. I'm only sorry I had to sit through one of his early learning experiences, because it was boring and worth nothing. Expand