Dalíland
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: June 9, 2023 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
59
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
8
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyJun 8, 2023
Possibly, no sane person could truly explain Dalí — who could account for the painter of Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano? — but Harron’s film maintains a wry compassion for these mad love birds, who have spent their lives defying convention and perhaps reality itself. Read full review
80
TheWrapMartin TsaiSep 28, 2022
It’s based on historical facts and real-life characters, yet it feels timeless and allegorical. It’s indisputably Harron’s best, and she deftly locates stately classicism amid the crass and the banal, and vice versa. Read full review
80
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 28, 2022
It’s both a highly entertaining movie and, by the end, a haunting one. It revels in Dalí’s artifice even as it mercilessly peels away his layers. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 8, 2023
At its base level, Dalíland is all about what a drag it is getting old, especially for a narcissist. But more importantly, it’s also a cautionary tale about the dead-end that is narcissism — not just in life, but in art. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJun 9, 2023
The ultimate deflation of the movie into a pointed drama of norms and ethics doesn’t, however, dispel its glorious hour of theatrical spectacle and artistic mystery. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 8, 2023
While Dalíland occasionally edges into caricature, its take on Gala’s role in the marriage, her temperament and feverish attention to money is happily more complicated. Read full review
70
Film ThreatAndy HowellSep 22, 2022
It raises interesting questions about cults of personality, our inability to deal with aging, and how we can use the people around us to get what we want. That’s not exactly surrealism, nor is it realism. It’s just Hollywood. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSep 18, 2022
Mary Harron’s Dalíland revolves around the titular Surrealist, played with restraint and dignity by Ben Kingsley, while gently nudging the spotlight in the direction of his complicated wife/muse Gala, a role in which Barbara Sukowa more than earns the movie’s attention. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyJun 9, 2023
Suki Waterhouse does her best with what she’s given. But still. The movie’s commonplaces don’t serve its singular subject—love him or hate him—all that well. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreJun 1, 2023
Sukowa makes a fine villain, one among many “using” Dali. But Kingsley is the reason to visit Daliland, allowing us to “be in the presence…of genius” and be irritated, titillated, amused and maybe a little depressed about the trap our imperious host has flounced into and embraced as the doom he dreads but so feverishly craves. Read full review
60
The Irish TimesTara BradyNov 17, 2023
Daliland is an entertaining if disappointingly formulaic entry into the Harron canon. Read full review
60
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeOct 15, 2023
The great missed opportunity of this film, with its glossy, handsome design and cinematography, and its genteel orchestral score, is how polite and unadventurous it is – something that could never be said of Dalí himself. Read full review
60
The GuardianCath ClarkeSep 5, 2023
The cleverness of Kingsley’s performance is the twinkle in his eye that leaves you wondering whether Dalí has disappeared entirely up his own myth. How much of the eccentricity is a put-on, brazen self-publicity to maximise sales? Disappointingly, the script invents a fictional art school dropout to be our guide to Dalí’s universe. Read full review
50
ColliderChase HutchinsonJun 9, 2023
Despite how transgressive and inventive Dalí was as an acclaimed artist, Dalíland is content to create a story that plays it all too safe. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshJun 9, 2023
It’s easy to take for granted what’s good about Dalíland, namely Gala and Dalí as played by Sukowa and Kingsley. Sukowa’s depiction of a Russian woman with a taste for drama and the finer things in life is over the top, but deadly accurate; Kingsley balances imperiousness and vulnerability beautifully and with an ease only he seems capable of achieving. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 18, 2022
Daliland dials up the actorly pyrotechnics, but it’s all spectacle without insight, failing to lay a foundation for why this long-running marriage, despite its volatility, endured. Read full review
50
IndieWireKatie RifeSep 18, 2022
For all its promises of an inside look into the Dalís’ lifestyle, the film never does much more than document it. Read full review
42
The PlaylistJason BaileySep 18, 2022
Mary Harron is too good a director to make a drab, conventional biopic, so it’s disappointing to report that with Dalíland, she’s done just that. It’s not a complete waste, and she manages to insert a handful of distinctive flourishes and memorable characters. But the picture never escapes the box it’s been placed in or transcends a key, fundamental error in its conception. Read full review
37
Washington PostPat PaduaJun 7, 2023
Directed by Mary Harron from a screenplay by John Walsh, the thoroughly unengaging film is a remarkable achievement, but only considering the misspent potential of its juicy source material. Read full review
23
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJun 8, 2023
The worst choice Mary Harron makes in Dalíland is relying on convention to make an end-stage portrait of an unconventional figure. Read full review
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