Happy as Lazzaro
Netflix | Release Date: November 30, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 27 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
Watch Now
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The TelegraphTim RobeyApr 4, 2019
As parable, the film’s slippery quality catches you off guard in the best way. And it summons profound love for a character – a village idiot it would never let you describe that way – without congealing even slightly into sentimentality. It clings on to Lazzaro like the only hope in a benighted world. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 3, 2019
Happy As Lazzaro itself is a weightless enigma, an unfathomable promise of happiness, gently tugging you upward, like a balloon on the end of a string. Read full review
100
L.A. WeeklyAlan ScherstuhlDec 6, 2018
Rohrwacher’s work unites a passionate interest in social realism, in the hardships faced by people on the streets and in the fields, with a daring refusal to be held by the rules of narrative realism. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyNov 29, 2018
Easily among this year’s finest films and laced with an unapologetic social message, Happy As Lazzaro dares one to imagine a reality where each individual would task themselves to be as selfless and morally whole as its main protagonist. If only. Read full review
100
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 29, 2018
A rich sense of mystery pervades this movie. You succumb to its strangeness the way that a child is enveloped in a bedtime story, trusting the teller even when you don’t fully understand the tale or know where it’s going. Read full review
100
Time OutJoseph WalshMay 24, 2018
With a rich, textured plot in which things are never quite what they seem, Rohrwacher paints a magical portrait of the decay of rural life, intertwining the past and the present in a work that is as exhilarating as it is sublime. Read full review
100
The Film StageRory O'ConnorMay 18, 2018
You could argue that Lazzaro Felice owes a debt to Pasolini with its fascination for peasants, saints, and faces, or even Gabriel Garcia Marquez with its mix of rural life and magical realism, but that would be to discredit the shear vivacity and boldness of Rohrwacher’s directorial hand, not to mention her incredible warmth as a filmmaker. Read full review
90
Film ThreatFilipe FreitasJan 22, 2019
Rohrwacher’s work is brilliant and very much recommended. Read full review
90
The New YorkerRichard BrodyNov 29, 2018
Only some on-the-nose symbols and facile political sentiments diminish her majestically playful, fiercely empathetic vision. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 29, 2018
Happy as Lazzaro is slow to reveal its full shape: It’s a realist snapshot of downtrodden lives that gradually takes on shadings of fable and myth, a deceptively plain story that, by the end, all but glows with wonderment and surprise. Read full review
90
Village VoiceBilge EbiriMay 19, 2018
Lazzaro Felice has genuine sweep and grandeur, and Rohrwacher’s most impressive feat here might be her ability to find just the right narrative and emotional distance for each section of the story, as it moves from rustic drama to picaresque journey to more pointed social allegory; we’re always given just enough information to understand and appreciate the characters’ interactions and motivations. Read full review
90
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 18, 2018
Beautifully shot, like Rohrwacher’s other features, on Super-16, this film, with its richly textured images, does indeed feel at times like a retrieved and rather miraculous relic from a lost era of cinema, which is not to say that it isn’t of its own moment. Read full review
85
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsDec 13, 2018
Happy as Lazzaro wouldn’t work nearly as well as it does if Tardiolo, whose innate openness and goodwill start to come off as the most surreal thing in a movie full of them, didn’t live up to the title. He’s the halo atop this film’s knotty, disheveled head. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubLawrence GarciaNov 27, 2018
Poised somewhere between despondency and hope, its conclusion suggests that, unable to see pure goodness even when it’s right before our eyes, we unwittingly snuff it out. Yet that goodness will endure — and it will outlast us. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnMay 18, 2018
The movie lulls you into its unpredictable rhythms, and a striking poetry creeps into the material, finally overtaking it. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJordan RuimyMay 18, 2018
Through a few dreamlike, discreet and beautifully placed sequences, Rohrwacher makes us believe that a world of empathy and accord may someday exist again. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansApr 8, 2019
Inviolata is Italian for “unspoiled”, and the word could apply to its people as much as their straw-gold land. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerApr 5, 2019
Happy As Lazzaro is s-l-o-w and its narrative twist will alienate some. But this is deliberate, singular filmmaking, at once poetic and down-to-earth, from an unsung talent. Let’s be clear: Alice Rohrwacher should cherished. Read full review
80
VoxAlissa WilkinsonDec 10, 2018
The result is a realist tale about labor, class, and cruelty, while also being a moral fable with a fantastical core. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 3, 2018
Part of the movie’s fun — and it is fun, once you adjust to its uninsistent rhythms — is how it forces you to share Lazarro’s go-along-to-get-along ebullience. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearNov 28, 2018
What starts out as an impressive mix of various classic-Italian-cinema strains turns into something much richer, rewarding and singular. Rohrwacher isn’t interested in resurrecting the ghosts of movies past so much as channeling the spirit of the Brothers Grimm and modern-day anger. Read full review
80
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 18, 2018
The film, for all its interest in fables, trades less in morals than in equivocal, irony-laced human observation. Rohrwacher deftly skirts sentimentality even as she risks big, expansive poetic gestures. Read full review
80
The GuardianGwilym MumfordMay 18, 2018
With Happy as Lazzaro, Rohrwacher has crafted a magic-realist fable that doubles as an origin myth for a modern Italy subsumed by corruption and decline. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenDec 6, 2018
It’s as if a mid-century work of Italian neorealism took a nap in a field and had a dream. Read full review
75
TheWrapSteve PondMay 18, 2018
If you can surrender to her peculiar vision, its beauty is undeniable; if not, impatience may set in long before the film winds down just past the two-hour mark. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 18, 2018
Though gently outraged in its portrait of class divisions, Happy As Lazzaro mostly takes its tonal cues from the eponymous character’s comically gentle, trusting nature. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijMay 18, 2018
The main problem of Happy as Lazzaro is that it's unclear what Rohrwacher finally wants to say in part two, which combines the near-documentary realism of her first feature with the occasional flights of fancy of her second. Read full review
More From This Movie

87 Critic Reviews

7.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL