The Saddest Music in the World
Metascore
78 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 33 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 33
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 33
  3. Negative: 0 out of 33
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  1. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    A deliciously weirded-out picture by Guy Maddin, a deliciously weirded-out Canadian filmmaker.
  2. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Carla Meyer
    100
    The concept is high, the humor lowbrow and the joy of experimentation evident in every frame of this wonderful picture.
  3. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    100
    The best Canadian beer movie since "Strange Brew," and the best 1930s musical of the year, The Saddest Music in the World is the kind of exhaustingly delirious film that only Winnipeg director Guy Maddin could make.
  4. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    88
    The effect is strange and delightful; somehow the style lends quasi-credibility to a story that is entirely preposterous.
  5. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    88
    Meant to evoke filmmaking of a bygone era, but this time the director is more restrained visually, while making use of a more conventionally structured script than usual. And he has a real, honest-to-goodness star in Rossellini.
  6. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    88
    Maddin's movies are easy, too. Point your eyes at the screen; the magic follows.
  7. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    89
    The movie occasionally continues on too long with certain scenes and may strain the sensibilities of anybody not caught up in its delirious visuals and melodrama, but The Saddest Music in the World nevertheless beckons with a seductive and unforgettable melody.
  8. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    91
    Hard to say who's luckier -- those who have seen the work of Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin before and know what to expect, or those who haven't and for whom The Saddest Music in the World serves as an eye-popping introduction.
  9. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    100
    Guy Maddin has reached a new expressive plateau with The Saddest Music in the World.
  10. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: John Powers
    90
    The weirdest, freest-wheeling, most obsessively inventive motion picture you'll see this year. Parts are confusing, parts are berserk, parts are exasperatingly slow. But in a world of cookie-cutter movies, Maddin's movies are like nobody else's -- funny, Romantic, as deliriously overwrought as a drug lord's wedding.
  11. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Manohla Dargis
    90
    It's all terribly tortured, often laugh-out-loud, absurdly funny and, as with all of Maddin's movies, conveyed through images that are as lush and beautifully over the top as the story's emotions.
  12. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    90
    Hilariously odd and prodigiously inventive.
  13. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    88
    If only there were a surefire way to describe Guy Maddin's films without scaring off viewers. The quirky Canadian is a genius who produces haunting, exquisitely droll movies that defy explanation.
  14. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    88
    It's the stuff of soap opera, infused with a nonchalant, David Lynch-like surrealism and a nutball Canadian humor. Beer - because of the baroness, and because this is Canada - flows freely.
  15. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Chris Kaltenbach
    88
    The Saddest Music In the World may not be for all tastes, but maybe it should be.

User Reviews

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User Score
6.4 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 18 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 13
  3. Negative: 4 out of 13
  1. SpongeeeK.
    9
    Unique film to say the least. Cinematography was crafty and the dark comedy and social satire were just right. I think you either get this film or you dont. Sorry for those who didnt get it...youre missing out on a classic.… Full Review »
  2. ChadS.
    9
    "The Saddest Music in the World" just might be the most quotable comedy since "This is Spinal Tap". You won't get any spoilers from me. See this film and enjoy them firsthand. Director Guy Maddin is a visual genius, but then again, maybe he just seems so because there's nobody else replicating the thirties-era films we ignore on Turner Classic Movies to compare him with. Serbia, in a modern context, isn't a funny country to poke fun at, but this film is set in the early-thirties, so the sight of the entire world collaborating with America against a sad cello-playing Serb is hillarious because he's so deliciously pathetic in his black mourning clothes. Because the film is absurdist, it's okay to laugh at his pickled dead son's heart in a jar of self-shedded tears, and yet it still manages a level of poignancy. That same aggregate of comedy and tragedy also applies to the relationship between Lady Port-Hurtly(Isabella Rossellini) and Chester's father, whose invention is so boombastic, it would make a pimp want to cut off his own legs. "The Saddest Music in the World" will take your breath away. Maddin makes Tarrantino seem conventional.… Full Review »
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