Queen of the Desert

Name: Queen of the Desert
Genre: Biography, Drama, History, Romance
Released: April 7, 2017
Duration: 128 min
Rating: 39

2017

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Generally unfavorable reviews based on 18 Critics

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Mixed or average reviews based on 5 Ratings

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Queen Of The Desert

Movie Details & Credits

IFC Films | Release Date: April 7, 2017

Summary: Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman) chafes against the stifling rigidity of life in turn-of-the-century England, leaving it behind for a chance to travel to Tehran. So begins her lifelong adventure across the Arab world, a journey marked by danger, a passionate affair with a British officer (James Franco), and an encounter with the legendary T.E.Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman) chafes against the stifling rigidity of life in turn-of-the-century England, leaving it behind for a chance to travel to Tehran. So begins her lifelong adventure across the Arab world, a journey marked by danger, a passionate affair with a British officer (James Franco), and an encounter with the legendary T.E. Lawrence (Robert Pattinson). [IFC Films]… Expand

Director: Werner Herzog

Genre(s): Biography, Drama, History, Romance

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 128 min

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Critic Reviews

Ben Kenigsberg

Apr 6, 2017

Bell is embodied, in a commanding and versatile performance, by Nicole Kidman, who supplies a gravitas and emotional complexity worthy of the woman she plays. Read full review

Mark Adams

Apr 6, 2017

While enjoyable in parts, its episodic pacing lets down the real-life story of a bold and remarkable woman. Read full review

Richard Roeper

Apr 13, 2017

The great and usually fantastically innovative Werner Herzog has turned Bell’s story into a conventional, cliché-riddled, overly talky and plodding biopic where very little happens for long stretches of time, and we have to endure deadly-dull voice-over narration while looking at admittedly gorgeous scenery and, well, camels. Read full review

The Hollywood Reporter David Rooney

Feb 8, 2015

Despite the director's frequently stated mission to liberate the poetry in his material by excavating what he has described as "ecstatic truth," this is a literal, rather flat epic that keeps telling us in voiceovers of its spiritual dimension, without actually generating much evidence of it. Read full review

Village Voice Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

Apr 6, 2017

Herzog has previously thrived on madness, so the failure here proves even more curious. Read full review

Ty Burr

Apr 6, 2017

In no way, shape, or fashion does Queen of the Desert qualify as a good movie, but for fans of Werner Herzog — those of us who have followed cinema’s Teutonic imp of the perverse since the 1970s, when he was staging all-dwarf fables and sending conquistadors across mountains — it is fascinating and something close to a must-see. Read full review

Slant Magazine Chuck Bowen

Apr 4, 2017

Throughout Queen of the Desert's narrative, there's no sense of danger, of texture, or even of a rudimentary idea of what's truly driving Gertrude Bell. Read full review

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