Farinelli: Il Castrato

Critics Consensus

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82%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 4,983

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Farinelli: Il Castrato Photos

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Movie Info

Carlo (Stefano Dionisi) and Riccardo Broschi (Enrico Lo Verso) are a brother act: Ricardo is a composer who writes the music and Carlo a castrato who sings it beautifully. But Carlo is clearly the more talented of the two, and soon becomes wildly famous -- first in Italy and then throughout Europe -- as the legendary castrato Farinelli. Riccardo takes to managing his celebrity sibling, but, when the composer Handel (Jeroen Krabbé) begins working with Farinelli, Riccardo's resentment surfaces.

Rating:

R
Genre:

biography
Original Language:

Italian
Director:

Gérard Corbiau
Producer:

Véra Belmont, Linda Gutenberg
Release Date (Streaming):

Apr 23, 2019
Runtime:

1h 50m
Production Co:

Italian International Film
Sound Mix:

Surround

Cast & Crew

Stefano Dionisi
Carlo Broschi

Enrico Lo Verso
Riccardo Broschi

Elsa Zylberstein
Alexandra

Jeroen Krabbé
George Frideric Handel

Caroline Cellier
Margareth Hunter

Marianne Basler
Countess Mauer

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Critic Reviews for Farinelli

All Critics (24) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (10)

Quote not available.

September 7, 2011 | Rating: C | Full Review…

Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
Artistry abounds in every aspect of the film.

February 13, 2001 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Quote not available.

January 1, 2000 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Steve Davis
Austin Chronicle
Because Carlo Broschi, the 18th-century castrato singer known as Farinelli, was himself such an exotic and sensationalistic figure, you'd think that creating a dull movie out of his flamboyant life would be next to impossible. Think again.

January 1, 2000 | Full Review…

Hal Hinson
Washington Post
Glossy and histrionic, salacious and empty, Farinelli reduces a fascinating story to a series of hissy fits and leering glances.

January 1, 2000 | Rating: 1/4 | Full Review…

Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle
Farinelli, one of the 1995 Oscar nominees in the foreign film category, is onto an interesting story, all right, but it leaves us feeling, like some of Farinelli's lovers, that something is missing.

January 1, 2000 | Rating: 2/4 | Full Review…

Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Farinelli is lush and theatrical in the way you'd expect a movie about an opera singer to be but, somehow, it's also dry and dull.

May 24, 2019 | Full Review…

David Bax
Battleship Pretension
While visually vibrant and generally well-acted, Farinelli is strangely not very compelling.

April 24, 2019 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…

Matt Brunson
Film Frenzy
This Oscar-nominated Belgian entry about catsration of boys who became phenomenal soprano opera singers is more bizarre than drmatically engaging, but the story is always fascinating and the movie nice to look at and listent to.

August 4, 2009 | Rating: B- | Full Review…

Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
Quote not available.

March 18, 2004 | Rating: 2/5

Jake Euker
F5 (Wichita, KS)
Quote not available.

January 23, 2004 | Rating: 3/5

Carol Cling
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Quote not available.

May 14, 2003 | Rating: 3/4

Jeanne Aufmuth
Palo Alto Weekly

View All Critic Reviews (24)

Audience Reviews for Farinelli

Jul 28, 2008

Beautiful, lush, sumptuous...all words that can be used to describe various aspects of this film. My only issue would be that the love between Farinelli and the woman who would later be his wife was barely explored at all - they go from arguing and ignoring each other to later living with each other in Spain, she being ready to have 'his' child. I could've done with a bit more of his childhood as well.

Kylie B Super Reviewer
Apr 25, 2008

The colourful and uninhibited life of "il castrato" Farinelli and his brother Riccardo Broschi, two men who shared their music and their women. An operatic biopic with impressive production values and a dreamy score. Not as big as Milos Forman's Amadeus, but still, a picture with immense beauty and pleasant erotism.

Pierluigi P Super Reviewer