Final Portrait
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: March 23, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 32 Critic Reviews
Positive:
23
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranMar 22, 2018
Final Portrait is quietly involving, amusing in a shaggy-dog-story way and impeccably made. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 22, 2018
Rush is a wonder. It takes bravery to convey closure, tunnel vision, total indifference to the camera that actors always know is there, however self-effacing they might want to be appear. Final Portrait is, like Rush’s performance, a miniature, but there’s a fullness to Tucci’s vision transcending every surface. Read full review
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanFeb 17, 2017
Rush and Tucci create a captivating portrait of an artist who’s at once elated, haunted, and utterly possessed. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayApr 4, 2018
Rather than probe Giacometti and Lord’s curiously arms-length relationship, Final Portrait is at its best simply watching the artist work — the “artist,” in this case, meaning both Giacometti and Rush. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyDana SchwartzMar 23, 2018
With its de-saturated grays and layered textures, Final Portrait itself is like a still portrait of Giacometti. You, as the viewer, are lucky just to get to spend time with these men during twenty or so days in their lives, privileged to be allowed inside Giacometti’s studio, watching the painting come together. Read full review
83
IndieWireBen CrollFeb 17, 2017
Though the film is all surface, that surface is precisely the point. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 17, 2017
It’s a highly entertaining portrait of the two men, and Tucci’s own directorial brush strokes are bold and invigorating.] Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie Collin
Rush hurls himself into the film’s star turn with a cantankerous abandon that more than compensates for his slightly unsteady accent. It’s a wildly entertaining performance that feels vividly inhabited both physically and vocally. Read full review
80
EmpireAndrew Lowry
Sensibly dramatising a few representative days rather than Giacometti’s whole life, this may seem slight, but there’s a lot to dig into here — and Rush hasn’t had a showcase this good in years. Read full review
80
Total FilmPhilip Kemp
A stellar performance from Geoffrey Rush centres this diverting glimpse into the chaotic life of a great artist. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiApr 18, 2018
The magic of the film lies in Tucci’s eye for a sense of place – Paris in the Sixties. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldApr 11, 2018
You get caught up in the way Tucci lets a round lamp fade into a glowing moon, or how Rush’s posture suggests a lifetime of bending over a canvas, or how a face on that canvas slowly emerges, from a forest of lines — and suddenly, time passes, and art happens. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorApr 5, 2018
The rare biopic of a visual artist that considers the dilemma of the art more seriously than it considers the drama of the life. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 29, 2018
Some of the dialogue is on the clunky side; much of it comes straight (or nearly) from Lord’s memoir; and Hammer has yet to find a fully easy-breathing way of behaving naturally on screen. Rush, by contrast, has so much fun with Giacometti’s tetchy, restless qualities, you don’t always buy the “tortured” part.Yet Rush is such a formidable technician, he creates a Giacometti of substance both real and theatrical. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedMar 28, 2018
Unusual and invigorating. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyMar 23, 2018
The depictions of artistic struggle and mania, the communication of the artist’s frequently painful bubble, are insightful and rewarding. The warts-and-all depiction of Giacometti, which establishes a credible explanation if not excuse for the many selfish acts he’s seen doing, winds up being an apt tribute to both the artist and art itself. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 21, 2018
In Final Portrait, art achieves a permanence that trumps an evanescent feast. What holds us through all the exasperating starts and stops is Rush, a live-wire actor of such effortless charisma that we’re drawn to his every utterance and gesture. Hammer, as a stand-in for the audience, can only stare in wonder as we do. Read full review
75
The PlaylistJessica KiangFeb 20, 2017
It’s a charming, modest glimpse into a rarefied world that, lit with so much humble affection for its characters, manages to make it seem not so rarefied after all. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzApr 19, 2018
At times his film is genuinely absorbing, offering insight into the madness and euphoria of artistic creation, along with the sometimes-crushing doubt. Other times it’s just Armie Hammer sitting there. Nothing horrible about that. Just not great, either. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlMar 22, 2018
Final Portrait is, in the end, a cheer for craftsmanship. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyFeb 17, 2017
Amusing but slight, the small-scale film is elevated by a spirited characterization from Geoffrey Rush as mercurial artist — is there any other kind in movies? — Alberto Giacometti. Read full review
70
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyFeb 17, 2017
Effectively a chamber piece spiked with musings on the difficulty of art, the piece is by nature a little stagey as well as talky. Read full review
67
The Film StageRory O'ConnorFeb 17, 2017
Rush is a joy to watch, no doubt, but the unavoidable sense remains that Tucci is stretching his material a little thin, restricting the narrative to the two-weeks-plus Lord spent in Paris with nothing on either end to really fill us in. Read full review
60
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisMar 22, 2018
Now and then, brisk restaurant visits and slow strolls through a cemetery (an unnecessary foreshadowing, given the movie’s title) ventilate the film, but Final Portrait (adapted from Lord’s 1965 book, “A Giacometti Portrait”) is pretty thin on drama. Read full review
59
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiMar 25, 2018
Without a strong guiding hand we’re left with a finely acted, but only adequate biopic, which brushes against greatness and then paints over it. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMar 23, 2018
In a supporting role as Giacometti’s beleaguered wife, who endures her husband’s penchant for prostitutes, the great, undervalued French actress Sylvie Testud strikes the film’s most resonant note. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonApr 12, 2018
This film might give you the urge to check out a comic-book movie. Read full review
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonApr 4, 2018
When the creatively blocked Giacometti stares at his canvas, cursing. He is literally watching paint dry, and so are we. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom RussoApr 4, 2018
Tucci can be so focused on Giacometti’s artistic process that he gives short shrift to the art itself. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 31, 2018
Final Portrait has the feel of a work that might be quite effective on a modest stage in a small theater. As a film, it’s well-made and the performances are fine, but it feels slight and thin and inconsequential — quite the opposite of the work Alberto Giacometti left behind. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 28, 2018
To the extent Final Portrait succeeds, and it does intermittently, it’s a rather deadpan comedy about two men trying to understand each other against a cultural and generational gulf. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineOleg IvanovMar 18, 2018
As seen through James Lord’s eyes, the dramas and passions on display throughout the film come off as melodramas and grotesqueries. Read full review
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