Although it’s sometimes slow-paced and mostly unassuming, Before Night Falls is the sort of movie that can change one’s view of the world.
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02/21/01
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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
There is something genuinely moving in Bardem’s Rabelaisian poet...
07/30/02
A visually arresting, well-acted biopic that would be better in Spanish.
02/17/01
Top CriticClick to read the article
03/10/03
Click to read the article
06/11/01
It'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 CriticClick to read the article
03/24/02
Schnabel 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
Oscar-nominated Javier Bardem gives one of the year's best performances as Arenas.
02/23/01
Arenas is not presented as a cliche, as the heroic gay artist crushed by totalitarian straightness, but as a man who might have been approximately as unhappy no matter where he was born.
02/02/01
Top CriticGives 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 CriticClick to read the article
10/15/02
A trip to the bookstore to pick up Arenas' memoirs might be a better decision than seeking out this miscalculated character drama.
02/07/01
"PERPLEXING."
04/02/01
Bardem, with his bull's head and wondering eyes, gives an immensely sympathetic performance.
01/26/01
Enjoy Before Night Falls as a great movie, and as a celebration of one man's spiritual and artistic fortitude.
01/12/01
despite a real commitment to Arenas and his work, the film just falls short.
07/25/03
You may leave the theater with the impression that quite a few documentaries would profit from deleting the talking heads in favor of an authentic dramatization such as Schnable's.
12/12/00
Manages to hold its center in a very strong performance by Javier Bardem.
12/18/00
The best American movie since American Beauty.
02/23/01
Top CriticLatest 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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