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Dancer In The Dark

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 55 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Musical
Written by: Lars von Trier
Directed by: Lars von Trier
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 22, 2000
DVD: March 20, 2001
Running Time: 140 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Germany/ Netherlands / UK/ Denmark / France
Summary
RATING: R for some violence
Starring Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, and Joel Grey
Bjork stars as Selma, a Czech immigrant and single mother working in a factory in rural America. She is losing her eyesight and her 10 year-old son stands to suffer the same fate if she can't put away enough money to secure him an operation. (FilmFour)
Also On Metacritic
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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
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...
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
One of the most searing experiences to be had at the movies this year.
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
For all its fancy pedigree, the spellbinding Dancer in the Dark aims right for the heart and aces its target.
Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson
Easily the year's most trying, tormented, and thrilling movie ordeal.
San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
A movie too smart and too urgent to be categorically awful. Clinically insane may be another matter altogether.
Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
(The film is) one of the most anguished, intense and weirdly brilliant of the year.
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Can be unbearably moving or annoyingly mawkish, sometimes in the same scene.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
I was astonished to find myself weeping copiously over von Trier's latest, which is another parable of monomaniacal sainthood.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
You may leave this movie exhilarated by its no-holds-barred boldness or annoyed and bewildered at the unpredictable course it takes.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Bjork gives what may be the most wrenching performance ever given by someone who has no interest in being an actor.
Film.com Peter Brunette
This is a film like no other this year, and on that grounds alone you should see it.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
A film of so much daring, a film that takes so many chances, it's impossible not to be impressed.
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The song-and-dance numbers that make this musical tragedy a celebration of life despite its awfully grim climax.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Ought to win a prize for sheer audacity.
Village Voice J. Hoberman
This deliriously downbeat vehicle for the postpunk diva Björk has generated the controversy the Danish dogmatist has relentlessly court.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Leaves you questioning its intentions.
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
My only reason to recommend this movie is that there's nothing quite like it.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Aside from Bjork's astonishing performance, it's a grim tragedy that's deliberately drab and exceedingly painful to watch.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Both stupefyingly bad and utterly overpowering; it can elicit, sometimes within a single scene, a gasp of rapture and a spasm of revulsion.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Like a naive modernist hymn made by someone who doesn't, deep down, believe in hymns.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
What is meant to be an innovative, cutting-edge musical melodrama is so jumbled, irrational and amateurish that it makes dinner theater look like the Old Vic.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
This is the kind of movie that has always polarized serious film folk, while the public usually elects to stay home and prune shrubs.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
If it weren't for a terrific central performance by the Icelandic pop singer Bjork, Dancer in the Dark would be all but unwatchable.
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
A movie that by turns is wincingly awful and heartbreakingly fine. It boasts an unforgettable performance by Björk.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Fairly incompetent as a musical and rather silly as a drama.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Two-and-a-half hour slice of unmitigated depression.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Lars von Trier is a mechanic, not an artist. And his movies are meat grinders he feeds his characters through.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
At times the movie's crudeness has an eerie beauty, but the musical fantasies are a bewildering hash, and the protracted climax on death row is nearly unendurable.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
Björk holds the movie together, her natural charisma and the overwhelming intensity of her emotions should blind a lot of viewers to the ludicrousness of the story and the intentionally rotten videography.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
So exasperating in its contradictions, so frustrating in its fakery, so deeply irritating in its pretensions, it's frankly hard to know where to begin to dissect it.
Read Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
A 2½-hour demo of auteurist self-importance that's artistically bankrupt on almost every level.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 55 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Andrew P gave it a9:
"Dancer" is one of the most thought-provoking, heart-wrenching films of the decade. It's a work of art that demonstrates that film as a medium, is still capable of evolving. "Bambi" may have been voted the saddest film ever, but surely, "Dancer" makes a mockery of any such list.
Clif C gave it a9:
Some reviews are simply made for speculations. This film is not about Lars von Trier's self-importance, I don't even know what's the reason of this statement! It's an original movie (even "worse", a musical film) that depicts the ordinary life of a mother who's ready to make everything, really hard, to save her son from blindness. It's common, yes, but the movie breathes of sincerity and realism, with this touch of surrealism with Björk's extraordinary music and great voice. The performances are great, specifically Björk's one (this woman is really THE ART in itself). The story is black, cold. We are not invited to laugh in front of this movie, simply to see how cruel life can be. Depressing? Maybe, but life is sometimes worse than that. The only problem I noted is the way sometimes it's filmed. Sometimes hard to stomach. Maybe this film would have a metascore of 90 out of 100 if it was directed by Steven Spielberg. F**k Hollywood-boot-lickers reviewers!
Silent H gave it a10:
One of the best movies Ive ever seen by far. A total masterpiece. Definitely recommend this movie.
Fenwicke gave it a4:
Bjork was great, but what was the point of this depressing movie?
Brian C gave it a10:
The only movie that has ever made me sob uncontrollably. That may sound like a bad thing, but this is simply an amazing film. I had the soundtrack prior to seeing the film and kinda knew that it was going to be something somber. She is amazing in this film. It is absolutely heart-wrenching, but a must-see nonetheless.
Jeremy gave it a10:
[maybe spoilers] Spectacular movie. Spectacular performances. Had this been done by a major famous Hollywood director, it'd be up for an Oscar - if anything for Bjork's wondrous lead performance. One thing that bothers me most about the critics giving poor reviews (20s, 30s, 40s) is that they blame it on the depression. "This si 2.5 hours of pure depression," or "the climax: with death row unendurable." It bugs me cause THATS WHAT THE MOVIE IS! It's supposed to be gut-wrenching, and heart-wrenching. It's supposed to make you cry. Make you feel. Make you hate it. It drains you mentally and emotionally, and, sometimes, physically. It's not unendurable though, cause you need to see what happens to her. And then that last song and it's pure misery backing it up - it really gets to you. And when it gets cut off.... one of the most depressing and best endings I've seen to a movie. Though probably the most depressing movie I've ever seen, and probably one of the most depressing movies EVER MADE... it's incredibly well done and it ranks among my favorites.
Andrew W. gave it a10:
This movie is simply amazing to me. So emotionally moving.
