Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The film is a masterpiece in which “locked-in” syndrome becomes the human condition.

The New Yorker David Denby

Schnabel’s movie, based on the calm and exquisite little book that Bauby wrote in the hospital, is a gloriously unlocked experience, with some of the freest and most creative uses of the camera and some of the most daring, cruel, and heartbreaking emotional explorations that have appeared in recent movies.

Newsweek David Ansen

Schnabel, screenwriter Ronald Harwood and Spielberg's great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski have found a way to take us inside Bauby's mind--his memories, his fantasies, his loves and lusts--transforming a story of physical entrapment and spiritual renewal into exhilarating images.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Every performer in the international cast -- Seigner, de Bankole, von Sydow (magnificent as Bauby's father), and the late Jean-Pierre Cassel to name but a few -- completely disappears into each of their roles, which I think is as much a testament to Schnabel's talents as to theirs.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The movie has done what those who've cherished the book might have thought impossible -- intensified its singular beauty by roving as free and fearlessly as Bauby's mind did.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Amalric is extraordinary, creating a character literally without moving a muscle.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

You won't have a more viscerally emotional experience at the movies this year.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The picture is so imaginatively made, so attuned to sensual pleasure, so keyed in to the indescribable something that makes life life, that it speaks of something far more elemental than mere filmmaking skill: This is what movies, at their best, can be.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Director Julian Schnabel and screenwriter Ronald Harwood have performed a small miracle in adapting for the screen Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Thanks to Bauby's courageous and honest writing, and Schnabel's poetic interpretation, what could have been a portrait of impotence and suffering becomes a lively exploration of consciousness and a soaring ode to liberation.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

At the end we are left with the reflection that human consciousness is the great miracle of evolution, and all the rest (sight, sound, taste, hearing, smell, touch) are simply a toolbox that consciousness has supplied for itself.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

he Diving Bell and the Butterfly fuses experimental techniques with a highly accessible and sometimes humorous narrative; it’s deeply personal yet universal in its humanism.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

It is wonderful: a rhapsodic adaptation of a memoir, a visual marvel that wraps its subject in screen romanticism without romanticizing his affliction. It left me feeling euphoric.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The adjective “inspirational” doesn't do justice to the quality of Schnabel's film.

Film Threat Matthew Sorrento

Schnabel's film is so steeped in the visual that it is surely the purest of cinema.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly provides an ecstatic lift for movielovers, despite the tragic subject.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Moviegoers are turned off by depressing topics, yet "Diving Bell" supplies something film fans claim they want: pure escapism, the chance to experience extreme sensations virtually none of us will ever have.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Mathieu Amalric, best known as an arms dealer in "Munich." In a role that strips him entirely of vanity and denies him virtually every expressive tool, Amalric makes a genuinely touching impression.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The most beautiful movie ever made about a man who could only move one eyelid -- almost dangerously beautiful.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

In a film that overwhelmingly avoids happy-faced pronouncements, this one sticks out.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Schnabel's sleepy, drifty, at times morbidly funny film tackles something more ambitious, by getting into the head of someone who's trying to get out of there himself.

Slate Dana Stevens

With the help of brilliant French actor Mathieu Amalric, Spielberg's longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, and screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Pianist), Schnabel has made a marvelous film that uses images with as much grace and flair as Bauby used words.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Simultaneously uplifting and melancholy, suffused with an unexpected sense of possibility as much as the inevitable sense of loss.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

In his memoir Mr. Bauby performed a heroic feat of alchemy, turning horror into wisdom, and Mr. Schnabel, following his example and paying tribute to his accomplishment, has turned pity into joy.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Could easily have tipped over into melodrama, but Schnabel is too much an artist to let that happen; he realizes that in order to make his hero truly substantial, and not just sympathetic, he has to present him as an ordinary man making the best of extraordinarily lousy circumstances. By doing so he’s created a character we not only marvel at but identify with.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The film is more than laborious eye-blinking - it's also dazzling visually, its potent imagery conjured by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. But finally, Diving Bell is about something imperceptible: consciousness.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

He even calls the majestic view from one of the hospital landings his Cinecittà, after the legendary Italian film studio. The movie is a Cinecittà of the mind.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The movie will wipe you out. Schnabel's previous two films (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) also focused on artists. But this is his best film yet, a high-wire act of visual daring and unquenchable spirit.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie never falls into gushy moments of inspiration and Schnabel never tries to manipulate any particular response from the audience. We're left to make of it what we will.

Empire Alan Morrison

A poignant reflection on what it means to be alive and, visually, a true cinematic experience.

Variety Justin Chang

Most compelling in its attempts to re-create the experience of paralysis onscreen, gorgeously lensed pic morphs into a dreamlike collage of memories and fantasies, distancing the viewer somewhat from Bauby's consciousness even as it seeks to take one deeper.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Whereas the book was lyrical and moving, the movie is surrealistic and inventive.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Take us on an indelible tour through the highest and lowest points of the human experience.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

By the end, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly achieves a victory over difficult material, but celebrating that fact doesn't preclude recognizing the story is not a natural for movies and remains an uneasy match.

Time Richard Schickel

Still, somewhat shame-faced I have to admit that at some point in the film I began to hear a subversive voice whispering in my ear, and what it was saying was, "Could you blink a little faster, pal?"

Village Voice Scott Foundas

Far too often, though, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly feels grotesquely calculated, especially the more Schnabel ratchets up the inspirational platitudes of exactly the sort that Bauby--who maintained an acerbic sense of humor about his situation until the very end--would have despised.