Before Night Falls: Critic Reviews

It's a struggle not just to make art but to exist, which is itself an art. And to that goal, the cast members, led by the astonishing Bardem, allow themselves to be devoured by the roles they are playing.

Though Schnabel's first picture, Basquiat, was notable for its excess and self-indulgence, the filmmaker shows restraint and maturity in this moving depiction of Arenas's life and loves.

It's the emotional and spiritual arc of an exile, in all its terrible isolation, that gives Before Night Falls its power.

Consistently intriguing and surprisingly entertaining.

The best American movie since American Beauty.

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.

Gives 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.

The main reason to see Before Night Falls is Bardem, one of the few modern actors with real animal appeal and the guts to show it.

Schnabel has fashioned a dense, emotionally satisfying portrait of a man, a time and a place.

Clearly this is Bardem's show. And Bardem walks away with it.

A prosaically inspirational and passionate work, a celebration of the artistic impulse as a surging force of nature.

Bardem hasn't the charisma to bring variety to Arenas or his plight.

In uniting to honor Arenas, Bardem and Schnabel create something extraordinary.

"Before Night Falls" exuberantly portrays a writer whose legacy remains an acutely observant childhood spirit that no perversion of politics could break. Javier Bardem blends the swagger of Robert Downey Jr. and the brooding of a young Al Pacino.

despite a real commitment to Arenas and his work, the film just falls short.

Saddled with a wandering opening and an equally listless conclusion, a more fitting name for this two hour-plus biopic might well be Before Night Falters.

The cinematography is beautiful and clearly shows the director's artistic bent, but the storytelling is often disjointed. . . . Ultimately, Before Night Falls is more successful as a Javier Bardem showcase than a movie.

[Bardem] simply does what the script calls for him to do, which is basically sustain a look of pain for two-hours plus.

There is something genuinely moving in Bardem's Rabelaisian poet...

Great performances...boring movie.

no one can say Schnabel doesn't know how to create a marvelous shot when he wants to. Telling a cohesive story, however, is a skill he has yet to master.

Un cri de coeur...Julian Schnabel's latest work can only be described as one of those soul-stirring cries.

Some may find Before Night Falls boring because of its episodic nature and its lack of a single, overriding plot. But Before Night Falls has some great qualities.

The film, clocking in at a mere two hours, feels much, much longer.

Avoids many of the tragic biopic pitfalls.