despite a real commitment to Arenas and his work, the film just falls short.
Comment
07/25/03
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Before Night Falls (2000)
74
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:94
Fresh:70
Rotten:24
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: An impressionistic, fragmented look at Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls' imagery manages to evoke a sense of the writer's artistry, and Bardem's strong performance holds the film together. Finally, a biopic done well.
Runtime: 2 hrs 13 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Dec 22, 2000 Limited
Box Office: $2,768,814
Synopsis: The life of Reinaldo Arenas, an exiled Cuban homosexual writer, is chronicled in an adaptation of his memoir BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, directed by Julian Schnabel (BASQUIAT). Javier Bardem (in an... [More]
Starring: Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn
Director: Julian Schnabel
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Reviews for Before Night Falls
Before Night Falls is successful because of their skill at composing and portraying the film's primary focus. It's just a shame that Schnabel neglects to fill in the rest of the portrait.
12/22/00
Avoids many of the tragic biopic pitfalls.
04/16/01
Sencillamente, una de las mejores y más emotivas cintas del año
03/21/01
Paints Arenas as little more than an abstract, idealized vision.
02/02/01
Compassionate yet unsentimental.
01/26/01
An intriguing and sporadically powerful motion picture with a stellar central performance.
12/18/00
Top CriticWhat drives this engrossing biography is the potent but subtle, complex, intimate and magnetic portrayal of the author by Javier Bardem.
12/20/00
Clearly this is Bardem's show. And Bardem walks away with it.
03/12/01
Having never read Arenas' work prior to seeing Before Night Falls, this viewer was inspired to rush out and buy all of his available works. That's some movie.
02/02/01
Convincingly shows how freedom is the air that writers must breathe in order to fully express their creative souls.
01/01/00
Bardem is so compelling in the central role that Before Night Falls emerges as a testimony to the human spirit.
02/12/01
Gives you a sense of Arenas' life, and the time and place in which he lived, that's as vivid as you're likely to experience in a movie biography.
02/01/01
Top CriticIt's the emotional and spiritual arc of an exile, in all its terrible isolation, that gives Before Night Falls its power.
02/02/01
Top CriticThe film has some great imagery.
01/01/00
Bardem hasn't the charisma to bring variety to Arenas or his plight.
02/07/01
Top CriticSchnabel gets so caught up in the melodramatic sweep of Arenas' life that he blurs out the specifics which might help us understand his sensibility as an artist.
12/20/00
[Bardem] simply does what the script calls for him to do, which is basically sustain a look of pain for two-hours plus.
12/08/02
All this is well and good, it's just rather boring.
12/18/00
Latest News for Before Night Falls
February 17, 2006:
Newell & Bardem Come Down with "Cholera"
International acting stud Javier Bardem and well-rounded movie director Mike Newell are about to bring the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Love in the Time of Cholera" to the... More...
April 20, 2005:
Bardem & Portman to Discover "Goya's Ghosts"
Javier Bardem ("Before Night Falls") and Natalie Portman ("Closer") are in final talks to star in the bio-pic "Goya's Ghosts," says Variety. The... More...
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