Farewell
NeoClassics Films | Release Date: July 23, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The movie is stunningly intelligent; the concluding passages, in which the game abruptly ends for both men, are frightening and, finally, very moving. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicRichard Nilsen
As in a Le Carré novel, we're given long doses of the private lives of the protagonists, and we learn their secrets, their insecurities and the toll taken by the necessity of constant lying. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
That's another thing about Carion's direction: He has an eye for unusual, atmospheric touches -- the kinds of striking little things you notice in the world and think: "Somebody should put that in a movie." Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
This is a game of numbers, not personalities, and a shrewd man wants the bigger numbers on his side when historians pick up their pens. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
This complicated but absorbing tale is not told through primarily American eyes ( Willem Dafoe plays a CIA. figurehead); primarily it's about French and Soviet brinksmanship, and those who succeeded at it, or failed, and one man who died for the risks he took. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
It's juicy, fascinating stuff, well orchestrated by Carion and finely thesped -- especially by Kusturica. Read full review
80
Time OutKeith Uhlich
Director Christian Carion (Merry Christmas) establishes a low-key yet threatening atmosphere right from the start, and gets terrific performances from Kusturica and Canet. Read full review
80
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
Farewell, a cold war drama by the French director Christian Carion, isn't just a movie set in 1981; in many ways it feels like a movie made in 1981. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJohn Anderson
The source of all this information was a real-life KGB agent, Vladimir Vetrov, code named Farewell, and with the usual adjustments for drama his story gets a respectable retelling in this nervy French production. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
As both men lie to loved ones to keep their exchange alive, the tension builds and becomes unbearable. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
When the smoke clears, heady Farewell stands tall among the movies that view the Cold War at close range. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Carion gets excellent performances from Emir Kusturica as the Russian and Guillaume Canet as the Frenchman. Each is a filmmaker in his own right -- Canet's directorial résumé includes the thriller "Tell No One" and Kusturica's lists the Serbian black comedies "Underground" and "Black Cat, White Cat." Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
More than most espionage movies, the film is about relationships, the men with each other, the men with their own disapproving wives, and governments with each other. Everyone courts someone. Read full review
75
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
Farewell is a solid telling of an obscure story and nothing more. The most effective scenes aren't cloak and dagger stuff but passages like Igor daydreaming of becoming a rock star like his idol Freddie Mercury of Queen. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The movie earns its tension and suspense the old-fashioned way: By making you care about its characters. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterStephen Farber
While the film is too convoluted to stir boxoffice excitement, it offers some rewards for sophisticated moviegoers Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
When it comes to actual historical details, Farewell crams too many notions into expositional blips of dialogue. And the scenes of conferences in the corridors of power, whether in Moscow, Paris or Washington, are strained and abrupt. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesGlenn Whipp
Farewell offers intrigue, simmering tension. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Carion might have found a more artful way to dramatize the case's geopolitical impact, but this is still pretty interesting stuff. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
If taken merely as a vaguely historical spy thriller, Farewell is a dandy tale. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
As a political thriller, Christian Carion's Farewell is fairly feeble, rendering some of the oldest clichés of Cold War potboilers without much urgency or stylistic flair. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
It's a bizarre, provocative story and a moving one, but it doesn't access the richer levels and themes of the film the publicity campaign obviously wants you to think of: 2006's "The Lives of Others." Read full review
60
Village VoiceNick Pinkerton
A homely bit of international Cold War cloak-and-dagger, starring badly dressed bureaucrats instead of chic spies, Farewell is based on a vital early-'80s espionage break involving the KGB, DST French intelligence, and the CIA. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineWade Major
It's hard to watch Farewell without thinking of such '70s classics as "All the Presidents Men" and "Network," mature dramas that Hollywood has since all but abandoned (with intermittent exceptions like The Insider). Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Their mundane meetings underscore how easily secrets are leaked, but unfortunately, scenes of meetings between Presidents Reagan (Fred Ward) and Mitterrand seem hollow and naive. Kusturica and Canet are strong, though, as is Willem Dafoe as an American intel officer. Read full review
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