Lost Illusions
Music Box Films | Release Date: June 10, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Wall Street JournalKyle SmithJun 9, 2022
Lost Illusions is sumptuous yet piercing, an expertly plotted social-relations saga of the kind that once typified prestige Hollywood cinema, and it dives into moral quandaries rather than dispensing easy bromides. Read full review
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeJun 9, 2022
This sweeping period drama may be up to its eyeballs in costumes and carriages, but it plays with all the brio and jeopardy of a modern-day gangster movie, featuring hack journalists as its antiheroes. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 9, 2022
Giannoli illuminates the dank frenzy of the 19th-century attention economy with an eye on our own post-truth era. Lost Illusions is sensational. Nobody paid me to say that. Well, actually, The New York Times did, but you should believe me anyway. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisJul 7, 2022
Don’t let the early 19th-century France setting of this adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s serialized novel Illusions Perdues fool you into assuming Lost Illusions is just another stuffy period piece lacking in modern sensibility. Read full review
88
Washington PostPat PaduaJun 28, 2022
Harbor no illusions about Lost Illusions. It’s no stuffy costume drama. Just close your eyes and imagine its characters in modern dress, toiling away in digital publishing, and its wild delusions and deceptions could be happening right now. Read full review
85
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiJun 9, 2022
Gianolli’s grand adaptation isn’t just a wicked send-up and a sensual period piece; it’s a poignant reminder that everyone who thinks they’ve cleverly sussed out the wickedness of mass media is hundreds of years behind the rest of the history class. Like the best stories told about earlier times, “Lost Illusions” feels remarkably contemporary. Read full review
83
The PlaylistAsher LubertoJun 28, 2022
A rich, old-fashioned story spun out of modern themes and postmodern storytelling, this film’s decade-long, country-wide examination of art, life, love, and, yes, illusion, has the kind of tone that brings to mind “The Sweet Smell of Success.” It’s a film of smirks and surprises, not least of which is that director Giannoli has taken this material and given it a tragic spin. Read full review
83
ColliderRafael MotamayorJun 9, 2022
Lost Illusions may not break the mold in the way Goodfellas did, but it does provide a fun, provocative, hilarious, and at times even moving rags-to-riches tale with a protagonist and a setting we have not seen before. Read full review
80
Film ThreatAlex SavelievJun 21, 2022
Lost Illusions is certainly nothing we haven’t seen before, at least narratively. But it’s done very well. Sometimes, you just feel like having a good ol’ soufflé. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriJun 14, 2022
Giannoli knows exactly which buttons to push and for how long. He takes what could have been a fussy adaptation of a dusty tome and turns it into something hugely entertaining. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeJun 9, 2022
With its stellar performances, dramatic orchestral score and rich costume and set design, Illusions Perdues is a worthwhile, sweeping narrative of love, lust and literary ambition. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 9, 2022
It’s acted with such terrific panache that not enjoying it is impossible. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyJun 14, 2022
Xavier Giannoli's film adaptation of Balzac's book leans heavily on voiceover, so much so that some sequences are practically an audiobook with images attached. This could be seen as a negative, but in practice the voiceover-heavy sections are some of the film's most successful. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyJun 23, 2022
A good movie, Lost Illusions aspires to be a great one, but that ambition helps keep it from being a better movie. It’s overstuffed and a mite too leisurely: a self-consciously dignified film whose least dignified characters are its most compelling ones. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineWilliam RepassJun 6, 2022
Lost Illusions leans heavily on voiceover narration that, for better or worse, draws attention to its novelistic mode of its storytelling. Read full review
60
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyJun 9, 2022
It’s a shame that Giannoli’s film, while ambitious, confidently executed and more than honourable, nevertheless feels like something of a relic. Read full review
50
The Film StageEthan VestbyJun 9, 2022
By condensing a 600-page-plus epic into a two-and-a-half-hour film, the sense of thought and detail that immortalizes Balzac isn’t translated. Read full review
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