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No consensus yet.
All Critics (13) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (0) | DVD (3)
... this is an astonishingly polished and nuanced first film. It deserves to be celebrated, not quibbled with. Jan 4, 2018 | Full Review…
... this is an astonishingly polished and nuanced first film. It deserves to be celebrated, not quibbled with.
Paul Attanasio
The story is not sensationalistic, although its love scene could not be more emotional. It`s a gentle story of someone being brought in from the cold. Jan 16, 2013 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…
The story is not sensationalistic, although its love scene could not be more emotional. It`s a gentle story of someone being brought in from the cold.
Gene Siskel
It's not a great movie, but it works on its own terms. Jan 1, 2000 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…
It's not a great movie, but it works on its own terms.
Roger Ebert
It's this evocation of a homophobia-free universe that elevates Desert Hearts from mere lesbian melodrama to the most tantalizing of wish-fulfillment fantasies. Dec 27, 2018 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…
It's this evocation of a homophobia-free universe that elevates Desert Hearts from mere lesbian melodrama to the most tantalizing of wish-fulfillment fantasies.
Nathanael Hood
One of the film's most fascinating features is the use of rock and country music to build a world in which there are only two human conditions: romantic fulfillment, and romantic loneliness. Aug 6, 2018 | Full Review…
One of the film's most fascinating features is the use of rock and country music to build a world in which there are only two human conditions: romantic fulfillment, and romantic loneliness.
Eve Tushnet
In Desert Hearts, [Donna] Deitch takes lesbian cinema back to its future. Aug 15, 2017 | Full Review…
In Desert Hearts, [Donna] Deitch takes lesbian cinema back to its future.
Armond White
Desert Hearts was an important, and beautiful, first step toward a movie world where LGBTQ couples were allowed unapologetically to be themselves. Aug 3, 2017 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…
Desert Hearts was an important, and beautiful, first step toward a movie world where LGBTQ couples were allowed unapologetically to be themselves.
Sean P. Means
It advocates risk and consciousness in tandem as the only means to overcome the cold, repressive hand of so-called normative thought. Jul 11, 2017 | Full Review…
It advocates risk and consciousness in tandem as the only means to overcome the cold, repressive hand of so-called normative thought.
Clayton Dillard
Desert Hearts wasn't the first, but it's certainly one of the most significant and an important forebearer to Todd Haynes and Phyllis Nagy's sublime Carol. Jan 21, 2016 | Rating: B | Full Review…
Desert Hearts wasn't the first, but it's certainly one of the most significant and an important forebearer to Todd Haynes and Phyllis Nagy's sublime Carol.
Glenn Dunks
Despite many shortcomings--narrow focus, stiff dialogue, and lack of humor--it's worth seeing for historical reasons: this movie herladed a new wave of American gay and lesbian independent films. Jun 20, 2006 | Rating: B- | Full Review…
Despite many shortcomings--narrow focus, stiff dialogue, and lack of humor--it's worth seeing for historical reasons: this movie herladed a new wave of American gay and lesbian independent films.
Emanuel Levy
A smooth and sensitive film that convincingly circles around the many different kinds of love and lets in light from several angles. Jan 15, 2002 | Full Review…
A smooth and sensitive film that convincingly circles around the many different kinds of love and lets in light from several angles.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
The story of an unexpected, atypical lesbian romance set in 1950's Reno, Nevada. If you're willing to overlook the low production quality and a few stiff performances, there's a very interesting film here. Helen Shaver is absolutely gorgeous and Audra Lindley (aka Mrs. Roper) impressed almost everyone with her portrayal of the loving but closed-minded stepmother. Overall, an enjoyable, unearthshattering respite from the never-ending onslaught of 'conventional' cinema.
Super Reviewer
One of the most sensitive stories for what it feels like to be a woman who loves women, "Desert Hearts" made quite a difference when it was released. Produced in 1985, it has been one of the most groundbreaking films of its time for the American audience- one of the many forward steps that the movie industry had to take in depicting homosexuals as beautiful and as intelligent beings as any person out there ('Making Love" [1982] also comes to mind), and one of the very few stories that had a happy ending for a lesbian couple at the time. Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau make a wonderful couple on the screen, and the love scenes among them feel tender, real and not contrived at all, just like their romance.
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