Let the Sunshine In
| Release Date: April 27, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangMay 4, 2018
Denis and her writing partner, the novelist and playwright Christine Angot, have woven a sublime comedy of sexual indecision. They mine Isabelle's affairs for humor as well as heartache, and do it with such delicacy that you may be hard-pressed to tell which is which. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 2, 2018
It’s a deep and moving investigation into one woman’s inner struggle as she goes about looking for true love. Read full review
100
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyApr 26, 2018
This is the touch of a cinematic master. Claire Denis is the writer and director of this film. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJoe Blessing
Denis and Binoche have made a film that’s both smart and sexy, imbuing new excitement and wonder into the emotional connections that define us all. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekMay 10, 2018
A multifaceted, bittersweet delight. Read full review
90
The AtlanticDavid SimsMay 4, 2018
Let the Sunshine In is a unique, spellbinding work, worthy of comparison to Denis’s best films. Read full review
90
Village VoiceDanny KingApr 25, 2018
An existential whirlwind even when it seems sitcom-flippant, Sunshine sees Denis continuing on an elevated cinematic plane. Read full review
90
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 27, 2017
Rather than a chic bagatelle, this proves an acutely intelligent, finely acted and – despite its cerebral edge - emotionally rich piece. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 27, 2017
Perfectly small rather than slight, and radiantly carried by Juliette Binoche — in a light-touch tour de force to be filed alongside her work in Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” — this turns out to be a subtler departure than it outwardly appears for Denis, most evoking her other Parisienne drifting-hearts study, “Friday Night,” in its bittersweet tone. Read full review
89
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpMay 12, 2018
The blend of artistry and genre is breezy and dense at the same time, a film worth enjoying for its surface charms and studied for its deeply personal reflections on intimacy. You may delight in its lively, buoyant filmmaking, but you’ll be awed by the breadth of its insight. Read full review
89
TheWrapApril WolfeApr 27, 2018
When films are made about straight men in this predicament, they’re often considered explorations of a “midlife crisis,” but Denis’ film poses the questions: What if crises aren’t limited to a certain age, and what if love itself is the crisis? Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMay 10, 2018
The film itself isn’t dorky in the least. It’s an elegant and witty rumination on one woman’s quest for romantic fire. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineGreg Cwik
Claire Denis finds the inexorable beauty (and sadness) in that most corrosive and fugacious of feelings. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 17, 2018
Denis (“Beau Travail,” “35 Shots of Rum”) is a very particular filmmaker, forcing you to adjust to her rhythms. Never is that more apparent than the last scene, which goes on for a quarter of the film or more, right through the end credits and beyond. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. ScottApr 25, 2018
Ms. Binoche, effortlessly charismatic and ruthlessly unvain, has no investment in the character’s likability. She and Ms. Denis could not care less what you think of her. Let the Sunshine In commits itself to taking Isabelle on her own terms. The challenge, for her and for the audience, is to figure out what those terms are. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerApr 23, 2018
With its moody heroine, sex and reliance on talk it would be easy/stupid to dismiss Let The Sunshine In as oh so French, but Claire Denis’ most conventionally entertaining film is a delight. And it’s yet another reminder Juliette Binoche is an international treasure who should be cherished. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMay 27, 2017
The film slowly but surely works its charms, painting a rich, emotionally complex portrait of a woman who, like Denis herself, will not let herself be boxed in. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 26, 2017
This is grownup film-making, more savoury than sweet, seductive, oblique and carried by a wonderfully smart and emotionally generous performance from Juliette Binoche – who delivers the material superbly, material which from almost anyone else would sound dyspeptic or absurd. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleMay 26, 2017
Bright Sunshine In is a pithily precise portrait of the love life of an artist. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiMay 31, 2018
Let the Sunshine In has many pleasures for those seeking a languorous, provocative, and enchanting look at a woman who is trying to carve out something authentic. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldJul 3, 2018
Isabelle is complicated, in a way that movie women often aren’t; Binoche makes her an intriguing puzzle to solve. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 9, 2018
Plays a little like “Sex and the City” as reconceived by a Minimalist composer. That makes the movie sound like a threat, when actually it’s a dry, lightly sad, and very French comedy of romantic neurosis, brought to us by two great artists, director Claire Denis (“Chocolat,” “Beau Travail,” “White Material”) and star Juliette Binoche. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 9, 2018
Let the Sunshine In doesn’t offer a consistently pretty picture. Where some viewers might view Isabelle as a hopelessly stunted victim of self-deception, others will see an avatar of empowerment and autonomy. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMay 4, 2018
The movie is all a bit more airy than it needs to be, but Isabelle’s startlements are like a double take that never lets up. Read full review
75
The Film StageEd FranklMay 26, 2017
Here is a film littered with off-piste humor and featuring a memorable, warm-hearted ending that argues being open to serendipitous new experiences beats comforting certainties in life. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaApr 30, 2018
Cream-puff light, but is deceptively rigorous, and about so much more than one woman’s quest to find the One. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternApr 26, 2018
The movie is maddening too, just as it intends to be, but you do watch, and care, and learn. What seems at first to be a gallery of narcissistic rogues turns into something else, a study in equal-opportunity romantic folly. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Apr 26, 2018
Perhaps it’s best to approach Let The Sunshine In as a talky palate-cleanser before Denis’ next big genre experiment, the forthcoming sci-fi movie "High Life." In space, one hopes, nobody can hear you blather. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 26, 2017
As slinky as the reflection of a neon sign trailing across the hood of a black sedan, this is a slight movie, shot on a whim just a few months before its world premiere, and it feels cobbled together in its search for some kind of meaning. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyApr 25, 2018
It relies on Binoche’s radiance, but also her immense control, to keep any kind of shape, demanding a portrait in shards which she pieces together, like an affecting mosaic. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorMay 31, 2018
If it weren’t for Binoche’s warmth, the film might easily sink beneath the stereotype of French culture as overly talky and sex obsessed. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneApr 30, 2018
Let the Sunshine In is said to be loosely based on Roland Barthes’s “A Lover’s Discourse” — very loosely, I would argue, in the same way that “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” was based on a branch of Home Depot. As for Claire Denis, anybody new to her methods will be addled by her breaking and stretching of the rules. Read full review
42
The PlaylistBradley WarrenMay 26, 2017
All in, the film is an unprecedented misfire for Denis. Read full review
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