Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) 2010

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: There's one good reason to see this biopic of the French pop-cabaret songster Serge Gainsbourg, and that's its lead actor, Erik Elmosnino. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Lacks either the dramatic intensity or the arresting insight that might have lifted it out of the pedestrian realm of the admiring biopic. Read more

Alison Willmore, Time Out: Despite the attention the film pays to the divide between the man as the ungainly, loving second-gen immigrant versus the boozy provocateur, it's not a portrait of much psychological depth. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: One could hardly make an honest movie about Gainsbourg that wasn't as recklessly ambitious as this. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: What's surprising, and ultimately disappointing, about Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is the degree to which Sfar allows biopic obligations to smother his more whimsical instincts. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: For better and for worse, Sfar's a fan, and his movie is a busy love letter to Gainsbourg that skates along the surface of the legend. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: French pop star Serge Gainsbourg was as much iconoclast as icon, so it's fitting that this fanciful biopic is both affectionate and irreverent. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: A sloggy fantasia about Gainsbourg's life featuring such oddities as a giant, hook-nosed puppet that acts as the singer's alter ego, as well as a parade of showy sequences involving grand Gainsbourg amours Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Unconventional, imaginative, nothing if not audacious, "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life" is a portrait of creativity from the inside, a serious yet playful attempt to find an artistic way to tell an emotional truth. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: A lively bout between bio-pic and fairy tale. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: Beyond its fantasy elements, Sfar's film doesn't color outside the lines as much as he might like us to think. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: If only all biopics were as entertaining as this... Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: Laetitia Casta steals the movie as Bardot, slinking down the hall in a miniskirt and knee-high black boots, leading a dog on a leash, then cavorting nude behind a bedsheet as Gainsbourg knocks out a song on the piano. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: In short, Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is a charmer. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Why was Gainsbourg a hero? The film leaves the question hanging. I am afraid it was only because, like Sinatra, he did it his way. Which no one can deny. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Alas, "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life" loses steam and grows more perfunctory as it wears on. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's the story of a genius with no moral sense and no interests beyond sensuality. The catchy, insinuating music can only carry you so far. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: It's a comic-strip version of one man's life and times, but it's tres cool. Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life accepts its subject on his own terms. And the compromise feels like capitulation before its hero's last record spins to a close. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: While the movie's on a roll, it's zesty, engaging and frisky. Read more

Greg Quill, Toronto Star: While Sfar doesn't dare tinker with the facts or sully the mystique, he gains enormous traction via the imaginative and subversive manner he has devised to tell a story that, in many ways, is hard to believe. Read more

Jordan Mintzer, Variety: Both evocative and faithful in its depiction of the famed French singer's lascivious life, Gainsbourg (vie heroique) offers up a feast of memorable chansons and an almost endless parade of drop-dead-gorgeous muses. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Still, for all the 40-year-old filmmaker's interpolated animations and puppets, for the insouciant, slapdash tone that characterizes his graphic novels, and for his protagonist's proclivity for scandal, the movie is too timidly conceived by half. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: A viewer who comes into "Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life" knowing nothing about Serge Gainsbourg will not come out the other side especially enlightened about the late French-Jewish singer-songwriter's life, least of all why it is heroic. Read more