Little Ashes 2008

Ben Lyons, At the Movies: A noble effort, that ultimately left me disappointed and unfulfilled. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: The tangled three-way friendship of Luis Bunuel, Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca could make for a fascinating movie. Instead, we have Little Ashes. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: Artists' lives are rarely as interesting as their art, and Little Ashes risks trivializing its subjects' work as mere responses to history. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Better to seek out these artists' works firsthand than to settle for this tame rehash, pretty as it may be. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: The film's biggest problem, beyond the overheated melodrama and paper-thin period trappings, is that the trio's fictionalized dalliances diminish their real art. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: What's intended to be a daring look at repressed sexuality, three-ways and all, has the dramatic heft of a true-love comic book. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Pattinson and Beltran are stuck with a rudderless script, and they make a soft, dull pair. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: The film teeters on camp, but the melodramatic music is a killjoy nagging the love struck teens in the audience that they should ache in their soul--not their pants Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Little Ashes is a case of too little of this and too much of that, and like the rumored affair, nothing of substance to hold on to. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: An exceedingly silly historical fantasy. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A bravely earnest and gauzy bit of biography. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Little Ashes is absorbing but not compelling. Most of its action is inward. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: Director Paul Morrison nicely re-creates the period, but puts too much weight on the sexual relationship as determining the men's artistic courses. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Little Ashes is stylish enough to beguile and bold enough to provoke, but it's not bright enough to illuminate. Read more

Greg Quill, Toronto Star: Even cinematographer Adam Suschitzky's richly textured and resonantly toned cityscapes and rural scenes can't make up for a flawed script and weak performances in what might have been a powerful historical drama. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: In the end, it doesn't satisfy as fact-based bio or love story, but we appreciate the effort. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The meandering film has moments of urgency, particularly when it focuses on Lorca, his growing politicization and the mystery surrounding his disappearance. But that arrives too late to redeem what has gone before. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: For much of its running time, Little Ashes wavers between the polite, stuffy style of a Masterpiece Theater production and the more pointed agenda of gay indie cinema. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: A typically bombastic lives-of-the-artists production made even more stilted by having all the actors (including the Spanish ones) speak accented English. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Beltran, for his part, makes a solidly believable Garcia Lorca. The problem is with the man with whom he's obsessed. In Pattinson's performance, we never see what Garcia Lorca sees in Dali. Read more