Before Night Falls Critic Reviews

In uniting to honor Arenas, Bardem and Schnabel create something extraordinary.Read the full review

It's an horrific and tragic story, but somehow made beautiful through the care and attention of Schnabel's direction and Bardem's tender, unforgettable performance.Read the full review

Arenas' life zigzags before us in a manner as heady and unpredictable as it must have felt to the man who lived it.Read the full review

A dense, emotionally satisfying portrait of a man, a time and a place.Read the full review

Most of all it's the emotional and spiritual arc of an exile, in all its terrible isolation, that gives ''Before Night Falls'' its power.Read the full review

There is a little something of the spoiled masochist about Arenas. One would not say he seeks misery, but he wears it like a badge of honor, and we can see his mistakes approaching before he does. This is not a weakness in the film but one of its intriguing strengthsRead the full review

Anchored by a charismatic and accessible performance by Javier Bardem as star-crossed Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas, this florid examination of an artist's coming of age, of cultures in collusion and conflict, is difficult to resist.Read the full review

Like a deathbed dream it leapfrogs through Arenas's life, reconstructing crucial moments as a succession of bright, feverish illuminations.Read the full review