Albert Nobbs 2011

Critics score:
56 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: With its unpredictable sexual politics and quirky little hero/heroine Albert Nobbs has the edge of quinine, a peculiar taste that won't entice everyone but worked for me. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's a small, gentle film with wistful sadness peeking around its corners, and when it's over you may feel as if you want a little more, as if we're not much closer to understanding Albert than we were at the beginning. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Characters as out of touch and desperate as Albert Nobbs awaken an instinctive doubt and distrust in an audience. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Ms. McTeer's sly, exuberant performance is a pure delight, and the counterpoint between her physical expressiveness and Ms. Close's tightly coiled reserve is a marvel to behold. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: [A] trifling melodrama... Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Close resembles no man I've ever seen, or woman either. She's the personification of fear-the fear of being seen through, seen for what she is. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: As an experiment in Academy Award psychology, "Albert Nobbs" is fascinating. As drama? It is, forgive us, a drag. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: The problem with Albert Nobbs though is that it's hard to believe that the people around the heroine haven't figured her out yet. Even with prosthetics, Close isn't all that convincing as a man. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: [Close gives] an intriguing performance, technically flawless, if by necessity distant. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: There's an ache of regret that sets "Albert Nobbs'' apart. Everyone here yearns for what they can't get. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Rodrigo Garcia [is] known for his female ensemble dramas but demonstrates no particular affinity for this material. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Men in drag are usually played for laughs. Women passing as men? Expect a tragic twist. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Albert Nobbs" is a film of great texture and tenderness, and the actors are a joy to behold. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: I don't know why [Close is] keen to play such a recessive wisp of a man, but I admire how committed she is to her bowler hat. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Notable performances by Glenn Close and Janet McTeer mark this carefully made but muted story of women passing as men in 19th-century Dublin. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Nobbs is such a spectral presence that infusing any measure of life into this person is an insurmountable challenge. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: [A] strange, sad, mesmerizing little movie. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: [A] funny, sorrowful, richly layered and tremendously moving film. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: What you feel, watching Close, is not that you are watching gender being bent into new, absorbing shapes but that you might as well have stayed home and leafed through a book on Magritte. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: There is comedy in it. But mostly there's just a kind of soft, quiet sadness - about lives unlived, about chances lost, about loves forever unexpressed. Read more

Ella Taylor, NPR: McTeer's sly, wise rendering of Hubert, a person every bit as battered by life as Albert has been, but with enough residual core and joie de vivre to reinvent himself on his own terms, picks out the meaning of Albert Nobbs. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The rest of the movie, sadly, can't live up to its leads. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Unfortunately, Albert is so good at being unobtrusive, he nearly disappears from his own story, making it hard for us to get invested in it. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: The point is to show the misery of a underprivileged woman ahead of her time, but so much dedication for such a small payoff makes you wonder why. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Close's performance as this poor, wounded fellow resonates with depth and poignancy. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: All of the red meat is just beneath the surface, occasionally poking through but mostly remaining buried. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is such a brave performance by Glenn Close, who in making Albert so real, makes the character as pathetic and unlikable as she must have been in life. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: As directed with grit and grace by Rodrigo Garcia, this quietly devastating film goes bone-deep. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: A movie that, like its title character, never quite dares to let itself discover what it really wants to be. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: This is a costume drama where the costume is the drama. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Albert Nobbs" is never less than a tidy feat - but never more than a shuttered window. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: The film surrounding the performance is not always as strong, but the centre holds, and magnificently so. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: The grim, grey-hued result is about as far from contemporary drag chic as it's possible to get - appropriate for the subject matter, perhaps, but hardly the stuff of satisfying cinema. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Albert is at the heart of it all and we see her through her own prism of vulnerability, resulting in a very human story about the search for love, acceptance and understanding of the self. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though this period drama is meant to be thought-provoking and prompt intriguing queries about gender, it leaves too many questions unanswered. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: "Albert Nobbs" is clearly Close's show - for better and for worse. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: It's a career-crowning role for Glenn Close. Too bad the film is such a drag. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: The result of [Close's] passion project? Getting to look like Bruce Jenner in a bowler and high starched collar. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: [It] sneaks up on the audience with the quiet discretion of the enigmatic protagonist at its center. And, like him, it contains multitudes beneath its prim surface. Read more