The Sheltering Sky (1990)
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Reviews Counted: 24
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 12
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Critic Reviews: 9
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 4
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 5,290
My Rating
Movie Info
From director Bernardo Bertolucci, The Sheltering Sky is a filmed adaptation of the novel of the same name by Paul Bowles. Debra Winger and John Malkovich star as Kit and Port Moresby, a married American couple who globetrot to North Africa in the late '40s with the hopes of re-sparking their love and adding some zest to their lackluster lives. Along for the ride is the pair's friend George Tunner (Campbell Scott), who soon begins having an affair with Kit. As they struggle through the numbing
Jan 1, 1990 Wide
May 14, 2002
Warner Home Video
Watch It Now
Cast
-
John Malkovich
Port Moresby -
Debra Winger
Kit Morseby -
Campbell Scott
Tunner -
Jill Bennett II
Mrs. Lyle -
Timothy Spall
Eric Lyle -
Eric Vu-An
Belqassim -
Nicoletta Braschi
French Woman -
Sotigui Kouyaté
Abdelkader -
Veronica Lazar
Nun -
Philippe Morier-Genoud
Captain Broussard -
Tom Novembre
French Immigration Offi... -
Kamel Cherif
Ticket Seller -
Amina Annabi
Mahrnia -
-
Paul Bowles
Narrator -
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All Critics (24) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (13) | DVD (6)
A disappointingly reductive adaptation of Paul Bowles's first novel.
Those who haven't read the book will be left bewildered.
As you'd expect, it's a big, handsome film, rich and strange in psychological depths and eroticism. Malkovich and Winger play woundingly well.
Top CriticA long, beautifully modulated cry of despair.
The book is so complete, so deep and so self-contained that it shuts the movie out. Bertolucci shows us the outsides and the surfaces, and a person seeing this movie without having read the book might ask what it is about.
Bowles's gentle, avian features, the obvious wisdom of his years and his distinctive presence are practically worth the price of admission.
Filled with stunning visuals.
Disappointing.
Brimming with obscure meaning and devoid of drive and fervor, the film dries up in that symbolic desert sun, the victim of its own pretensions and a casualty of trying to film something best suited to the realm of cult literature.
Bertolucci's grand desert epic gets stuck in the sand right at the start.
(No quote available.)
Soul searching is rarely a thrill a minute but it's rarely as tedious as this. ...Oscar-bait it may be, but "The Sheltering Sky" is more deserving of the First Annual Chicken Little Award.
One of those movies where you know they're trying to say something important, but it's just not coming across.
Audience Reviews for The Sheltering Sky
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Mrs. Lyle: Shut up and drink it you sissy!
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Foreign Titles
- Sheltering Sky, The (AU)
