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Before Night Falls
Fine Line Features


9.0

based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual content, some language and brief violence

Starring Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez, Andrea Di Stefano, Johnny Depp, and Sean Penn

A richly imagined joumey into the life and writings of the brilliant Cuban author and exile Reinaldo Arenas. (Fine Line Features)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Reynaldo Arenas (memoir) Lázaro Gómez Carriles Cunningham O'Keefe Julian Schnabel
DIRECTED BY:	Julian Schnabel
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 22, 2001 Video: May 22, 2001 Theatrical: December 22, 2000
RUNNING TIME:	125 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	English / Spanish

Javier Bardem received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for his starring role.

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Newsweek David Ansen

This powerful, lyrical meditation on Arenas's life achieves a kind of hallucinatory urgency as it leaps and twists through his life.

100

Film.com Peter Brunette

With Before Night Falls, Schnabel has moved to an entirely new plane of cinematic achievement.

100

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

It's huge and bewildering and it hurts to watch, but it hurts so good it's gorgeous.

100

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In uniting to honor Arenas, Bardem and Schnabel create something extraordinary.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Arenas' life zigzags before us in a manner as heady and unpredictable as it must have felt to the man who lived it.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

It's an horrific and tragic story, but somehow made beautiful through the care and attention of Schnabel's direction and Bardem's tender, unforgettable performance.

Variety David Rooney

A dense, emotionally satisfying portrait of a man, a time and a place.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

The film's ephemeral, semi-evasive lyricism ultimately works as a modest frame for Bardem's tender, deft portrait, which is in turn suitably expansive and rooted in the most concrete details -- Arenas's pride and anger, his unsentimental wit and defiant vitality.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This is a sad, passionate, beautifully wrought story, and Bardem's portrait of Arenas is at once daring and deeply moving.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Most of all it's the emotional and spiritual arc of an exile, in all its terrible isolation, that gives ''Before Night Falls'' its power.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

A dreamy, passionate ode to freedom -- of thought, of expression, of every person's innate right to simply be.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A thoughtful, bittersweet film biography of the Cuban writer that captures both his irrepressible spirit and his sometimes overwhelming melancholy.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There is a little something of the spoiled masochist about Arenas. One would not say he seeks misery, but he wears it like a badge of honor, and we can see his mistakes approaching before he does. This is not a weakness in the film but one of its intriguing strengths

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

This is an art film in the true sense of the term, engaging the mind, senses and emotions in a way that only movies at their best can do.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Bardem's performance is simply shattering.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

It's such a sensory experience; in its best moments, the film washes over you like a fever dream.

Dallas Observer David Ehrenstein

Arenas' story is a downer that doesn't produce despair. That's because of the exceptional bravery of Arenas himself, and the understanding that both Schnabel and his extraordinary leading man, Javier Bardem, have of him, his world, and his time.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

As good as it is, Before Night Falls might not work if Schnabel hadn't found a leading man to hold it together and the Spanish actor Javier Bardem has the understated charisma to pull it off.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Anchored by a charismatic and accessible performance by Javier Bardem as star-crossed Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, this florid examination of an artist's coming of age, of cultures in collusion and conflict, is difficult to resist.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Like a deathbed dream it leapfrogs through Arenas's life, reconstructing crucial moments as a succession of bright, feverish illuminations.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Politics and humanism find an engrossing balance in this ambitious drama based on the life of Reinaldo Arenas, a gay Cuban poet who was persecuted by the homophobic Castro regime.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A personal eulogy, from one artist to another, and an indictment of all systems of government that deny people the right to free expression and the full realization of their talent.

USA Today Mike Clark

Plays like a labor of love.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

An impressive piece of filmmaking, with lively and suggestive depictions of pre- and postrevolutionary Cuba (shot in Mexico).

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Anyone expecting a hard-hitting biography will be disappointed by Julian Schnabel's soft-edged, dreamy and relatively nonpolitical film.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Under Schnabel's direction, it becomes stilted and static, if not simplistic.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Diana gave it a10:
The movie's style reflects Arenas' work well, and incorporates his poetry and fiction into some of the major biographical aspects. please watch the original with subtitles; it is so much better. and let it prompt you to read some arenas!

Blanco A. gave it a 10:
Just see it. It will be a travesty when Javier Bardem is passed over for the Academy Award (unless, of course, Ed Harris wins for "Pollack"). This film is beautiful, hopeful, and inspirational. I'll be first in line to see Bardem's next film.

Desi M. gave it a 10:
Engrossing, beautifully photographed, hilarious, painful, joyous, tragic, triumphant. If you have ANY interest in this film's subject matter, do NOT miss it, period.

Jon C. gave it a 10:
Best film released last year. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Love it.

Anthony Z. gave it a 10:
Rich and talented storytelling with graceful, subtle profundity.

Marlon G. gave it a 10:
Impresive. Bardem is just amazing.

Before Night Falls Fine Line Features

Before Night Falls
Fine Line Features