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Nico and Dani
Avatar Films


8.5

based on 21 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 7 votes
Read user comments
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MPAA RATING: Not rated

Starring Fernando Ramallo, Jordi Vilches, Marieta Orozco, Esther Nubiola, and Chisco Amado

A portrait of adolescent experience set against the blazing sun and azure sea of a small seaside town near Barcelona. During ten days of freedom, two best friends discover love, sex, jealousy and disenchantment and thus cross that vague border separating adolescence from manhood. (Avatar Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Cesc Gay Tomas Aragay
DIRECTED BY:	Cesc Gay
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: November 20, 2001 Video: November 20, 2001 Theatrical: February 2, 2001
RUNNING TIME:	90 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Spain
LANGUAGE(S):	Spanish (with English subtitles)

Also known as "Krámpack"

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...

Boston Globe Jay Carr

The film is rightfully carried by Nico and Dani and under Gay's artful helmsmanship it's carried with remarkable sympathy and believability.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

An exceptional coming-of-age film--subtle, humorous, compassionate, acutely perceptive.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Touching, funny, unflinching and true.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The movie ultimately turns out to be less about sex than it is about the point in a friendship where two people decide they will both be better off if they part ways.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

Honest, sensitive and keenly observant.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Delivers the oft-trod subject of boys' sexuality with intelligence and freshness.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

While Nico and Dani presents itself as a no-frills coming-of-age tale, its soundtrack seems lifted from a teen comedy like "American Pie."

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A more honest version of "Summer of '42."

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Director Gay deals so honestly with the boys' emotions, it's almost a revelation when compared to Hollywood fabrications.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

American teenage movies tidy things up by pairing off the right couples at the end. In Europe they know that summers end and life goes on.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Nico and Dani merely retells a not uncommon tale without significantly enriching it. It's just too familiar to play as poignantly as it would like to.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

That rarest of creatures: a coming-of-age dramedy whose (nearly) teenage stars are natural actors, whose direction is unforced, and whose sexual themes are treated with candor and humor.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Breezy, surprisingly poignant Spanish film.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Rambling and easygoing, Nico and Dani is a modest but frank look at adolescent lust, both heterosexual and homosexual.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Sweet and harmless -- a beach movie in more ways than one -- but it doesn't run awfully deep.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The acting is amiable but the story isn't much deeper than the callow main characters.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Filled with the kind of frank, nonsensational sensuality that eludes American filmmakers, this movie proves again that the most interesting cinema about teenage life -- gay and otherwise -- is being made far from our provincial shores.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

The movie avoids grand conclusions, and its restraint heightens the clarity of the perspective shifts that constitute a rite of passage; Nico and Dani is a modest chronicle of a summer during which everything had to change so that everything could stay the same.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Amazingly, Cesc Gay's delicate but unblinking film Nico and Dani succeeds in capturing and sustaining the fragile emotional climate of curiosity, fear, innocence and prurience that surrounds adolescent sexual experimentation.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

A movie more interested in shocking than in entertaining.

Film.com Henry Cabot Beck

Everyone will be indifferent, as indifferent and uncaring as the characters the film portrays.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Frank O. gave it a10:
I really enjoyed this movie; fast paced, plot kept moving with enough twist to keep you guessing. Well done coming of age movie; have NOT seen one like this from the American market.

Nick D. gave it an 8:
It's too bad this film is obscure to most American teenagers. There's not too many other films out there that portray teen sexuality so frankly and beautifully.

Bobby H. gave it a 9:
Their're good movie that came out like Get Real, Borstar Boy just to name a couple. The movie Nico and dani was great it hit real close to home. I hope are more movie like these in the days coming.

Jim B. gave it a 10:
A must see for those who are gay or straight or confused. It is a special film that will stay in your heart forever.

Aaron A. gave it an 8:
Refreshing in its frank look at sexuality across the spectrum and the difficulty of intimacy. Plus a nice visual vacation to Spain.

Lanny T. gave it a 7:
I found it a frank and honest look at the awkward age between adolescense and adulthood. If hollywood made movies this honest, I'd go to the theatres more often.

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Nico and Dani Avatar Films

Nico and Dani
Avatar Films