critics consensus

Reaching for the Moon's uptight sensibilities sometimes play more pretentious than poetic, but solid performances and sumptuous photography leave a lingering longing for love in the tropics. Read critic reviews

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Reaching for the Moon Photos

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Movie Info

Poet Elizabeth Bishop (Miranda Otto) has a love affair with architect Lota de Macedo Soares (Gloria Pires).

Genre:

drama, romance, biography, gay and lesbian
Original Language:

English
Director:

Bruno Barreto
Producer:

Lucy Barreto, Paula Barreto
Writer:

Matthew Chapman, Julie Sayres
Release Date (Theaters):

Nov 8, 2013 limited
Release Date (Streaming):

Mar 22, 2016
Runtime:

1h 58m
Production Co:

LC Barreto

Cast & Crew

Gloria Pires
Lota de Macedo Soares

Miranda Otto
Elizabeth Bishop

Tracy Middendorf
Mary

Marcello Airoldi
Carlos Lacerda

Tânia Costa
Dindinha

Treat Williams
Robert Lowell

Show all Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for Reaching for the Moon

All Critics (37) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (24) | Rotten (13)

Attention is retained by the commendably unhistrionic leads, who convincingly etch the pair's enduring devotion even when passions run dry.

March 31, 2015 | Full Review…

Guy Lodge
Variety
The life of American Poet Laureate Elizabeth Bishop furnishes surprisingly vivid emotional material in Reaching for the Moon.

March 31, 2015 | Full Review…

Deborah Young
Hollywood Reporter
It's hard not to admire the intentions of a movie that depicts two exceptional women living exactly the way they wanted, together, outside the expected societal norms of the time. But the tone of the film itself feels unfortunately conventional.

March 31, 2015 | Rating: 2/4 | Full Review…

Christy Lemire
RogerEbert.com
If Blue Is the Warmest Color is the gloriously messy supernova of this year's lesbian dramas, this is the J. Peterman catalog version: elegant, tasteful, and two-dimensional.

March 31, 2015 | Rating: B | Full Review…

Leah Greenblatt
Entertainment Weekly
Opulently shot and designed, full of spectacular, tourist brochure-style imagery of Brazilian buildings and landscapes, the film teeters on the edge of novelettish melodrama throughout.

March 31, 2015 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Geoffrey Macnab
Independent (UK)
The period detail is finely caught, the lovemaking scenes achieve a tenderness and intimacy rare in contemporary cinema, and for good measure a political coup is happening offstage. We more than get our money's worth.

July 23, 2014 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review…

Evan Williams
The Australian
Disappointingly, Barreto's film is sorely lacking in artfulness, even being so corny as to utilize voiceover recitations as a device to make the tired on-screen happenings seem more meaningful than they actually are.

April 3, 2019 | Rating: 5/10 | Full Review…

Bernard Boo
Way Too Indie
Reaching for the Moon's pace is occasionally leaden, but for the most part this is an engaging portrait of two iconic women and a pivotal moment in Brazil's history.

March 20, 2019 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Lucy Popescu
CineVue
Despite the film doing some clunky biopic things, Otto gives this more than enough reason enough to fly down to Rio.

May 23, 2016 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review…

Russell Baillie
New Zealand Herald
A resolutely melodramatic film that feels engagingly old-fashioned as it revels in its lesbian love-triangle storyline.

March 31, 2015 | Full Review…

Mark Adams
Screen International
I really enjoyed the first three quarters of the film and then not so much the end.

March 31, 2015 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Judith Lucy
At the Movies (Australia)
Brazilian actress Gloria Pires is a real dynamo as the extroverted Lota, and yet she navigates through the darker, fragile moments well. Meanwhile, as the WASPish, reserved Elizabeth, Australian actress Miranda Otto is a standout.

March 31, 2015 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Jason Di Rosso
At the Movies (Australia)

View All Critic Reviews (37)

Audience Reviews for Reaching for the Moon

May 01, 2014

An irregular story, at times melodramatic and full of those clichés that plague most biopics (despite a nice speech scene that sounds relevant even today when it comes to dictatorships), with characters who seem like mere drafts and never become complex enough to make us care.

Carlos M Super Reviewer
Nov 24, 2013

With her suffering from severe writer's block in New York City in 1951, the poet Elizabeth Bishop(Miranda Otto) decides, as her friend Robert Lowell(Treat Williams) would put it, to take the 'geographical cure' by traveling to Rio de Janeiro to visit her friend Mary(Tracy Middendorf) from Vassar. There, she finds but is not shocked by Mary being involved in a romantic relationship with Lota(Gloria Pires), a wealthy architect, who lives in the country. Then, Elizabeth literally and figuratively bites off more than she can chew, by beginning an affair with Lota, while Lota promises Mary a puppy, no wait, to adopt a baby if she will stay. Once upon a time, the director Bruno Barreto made a wild movie called "Dona Flor and her Two Husbands" about a unique relationship. Now, he returns with "Reaching for the Moon" which is also about an intriguing relationship(the movie could just as easily be called "Dona Lota and Her Two Wives") which is grounded in reality and a true story with relationships and performances that ring true.(In fact, nobody does flustered better than Miranda Otto.) At the beginning, Elizabeth seems inexperienced but gains confidence and grows as a person throughout the film. A lot of that has to do with her creative input and success, as the movie also serves as a fine look at the creative process, both poetic and architectural, with a fine use of modernist design.

Walter M Super Reviewer