Keep the Lights On
Music Box Films | Release Date: September 7, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanSep 6, 2012
Lindhardt, sweet and childish and achingly vulnerable, gives a stunning performance. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfSep 4, 2012
This is a drama about finding one's self-worth; you simply have to see it. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubSam AdamsSep 5, 2012
Keep The Lights On feels less like a memoir than a collage made from diary scraps, evocative but not prescriptive. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesGary GoldsteinSep 8, 2012
A haunting, immersive portrait of a romance between two men, one that's marked - and marred - by both drug dependency and emotional codependency. Not unlike last year's gay-themed drama, "Weekend," it proves an important and mature piece of business. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 6, 2012
Its subject is not addiction or ambition, or even love in a conventional romantic sense, but rather the more elusive and intriguing matter of intimacy: how it grows, falters and endures over time. Read full review
90
Village VoiceEric HynesSep 4, 2012
With its naked but never self-indulgent depictions of sex and all manner of addiction, Keep the Lights On is disarmingly, at times exhilaratingly, human. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'HehirSep 4, 2012
Not only does this film gloriously fulfill the potential that Ira Sachs has tantalized movie-lovers with for years, it also help explains what took him so long. Out of lost love comes a terrific work of art; it's the oldest story in the world, but it always feels new when it's done right. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertOct 24, 2012
By dropping in on this couple from time to time for the kinds of moments one of them might remember, the film is more honest than its characters. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonOct 12, 2012
The performances are first-rate, with Lindhardt particularly moving as a guy who's in deep denial about just how much he can expect from a relationship with an addict. Read full review
85
NPRBob MondelloSep 7, 2012
The film, though, is as sure-footed as their partnership is not - a nuanced portrait of emotional turmoil, persuasively acted, richly sensual one moment, wrenching the next, and unlike so many films centering on gay characters, not particularly concerned with things like coming out or HIV. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 4, 2012
Sachs skillfully explores dangerous extremes -- not only drug addiction, but the slipperiness of attraction. Read full review
80
The GuardianMike McCahillNov 4, 2012
Every frame pulses with hard-gained experience: it may be the most lived-in film of 2012, and certainly counts among the most moving. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanSep 6, 2012
A well-written, sensitively directed relationship drama. In most circumstances, that's all it would be - and that would be enough. But lead Thure Lindhardt pushes the picture into realms of such exposed intimacy, you almost feel like you're dating him yourself. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 4, 2012
Sachs hits notes we've rarely heard in gay cinema, in which the hedonist bleeds into the humanist, the ephemeral into the enduring. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesNov 1, 2012
Keep the Lights On feels like a first-rate, late-Seventies experimental student film, or early Scorsese. But then the cycle of addiction takes over the film, and the plot about stagnancy ends up stagnating the film itself. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleDavid LewisSep 13, 2012
The film is at its best in the bedroom, not shying away from the sexual relationship, but not being graphic about it, either. There is great sex, clumsy sex, tender sex - and it's all crucial to the story. Such genuine intimacy, whether gay or straight, is virtually nonexistent in American cinema. It's enthralling to see it here. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickSep 7, 2012
A tough, well-acted little indie. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineEd GonzalezSep 4, 2012
More than just a relationship drama of striking specificity, this is a naked confession about addiction. Read full review
70
Boxoffice MagazineRay GreeneSep 4, 2012
It seems odd to call a detailed portrait of toxic romance lovely, but Keep the Lights On truly is. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangSep 4, 2012
Delicately tracing the troubled nine-year bond between two men living in New York, Ira Sachs mines his own memories to sensitive, melancholy if somewhat muted effect in Keep the Lights On. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 4, 2012
A stiff central performance diminishes its emotional impact, but the visually alluring film's sensuality and tenderness give it a lingering spell. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisOct 11, 2012
It's inspired of Sachs to lean on Russell for a kind of oblique emotional depth. But it's possible to leave this movie mistaking Sachs's soul for Russell's. Read full review
60
EmpireWilliam ThomasOct 29, 2012
While not quite on a par with Andrew Haigh's "Weekend," this is still an undeniably powerful piece of filmmaking. Read full review
60
Total FilmTom DawsonOct 27, 2012
Keep The Lights On feels lopsided in its focus on Erik, with Paul remaining a strangely remote object of the former's romantic devotion. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadaySep 21, 2012
Never lets viewers fully inside Erik and Paul's world, a reticence that isn't helped by the actors' fey, restrained-to-a-fault performances. That and a frustratingly episodic structure make what might have been a raw and inspiring portrait of commitment and boundaries a surprisingly uninvolving, arms-length enterprise. Keep the Lights On lets go just when it should be holding you tighter. Read full review
40
The New YorkerDavid DenbySep 4, 2012
The two characters are ciphers, and the script, which Sachs co-wrote with Mauricio Zacharias, is by turns underwritten or banal. Read full review
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