Malèna
Miramax Films | Release Date: December 25, 2000 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
6
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Gives audiences something more than just a heart-stopping beauty to contemplate. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Malena the film is as beautiful and seductive as its heroine, with its ravishing Lajos Koltai cinematography and sweepingly romantic Ennio Morricone score. Read full review
63
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Striking photography, period detail, screen-filling crowd scenes, and veteran composer Morricone's score make this one worth seeing, but the sheer nastiness of the town's people drags it down. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
What begins as a blushing, priapic opera buffa about coming of age turns into a verismo shocker, before softening into something mellower. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
Intriguing, containing a truthful kernel of sweetness, rot and brutality that will shock many. Read full review
50
USA TodayMike Clark
There's definitely some paradiso in watching Malena walking, but not enough to sustain almost two hours of cinema. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Somewhere in writer-director Giuseppe Tornatore's overstyled movie, about a 12-year-old boy (Sulfaro) during the Italian fascist period who has the hots for a mistreated war widow (Belluci), is a pretty good short story about the fickleness of community and the cruelty of gossip struggling to get out. Read full review
20
Mr. ShowbizKevin Maynard
Giuseppe Tornatore has long been a master of cheap sentiment ("Cinema Paradiso," " The Legend of 1900"), but his latest film is his most shallow, reprehensible exercise in nostalgia to date. Read full review
10
Film.comHenry Cabot Beck
In the end, Malena is an unlikable and foul farce, unworthy of Tornatore's previously gentle touch. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Qualifies as director Giuseppe Tornatore's second full-fledged masterpiece. His first: "Cinema Paradiso." Read full review
70
Village VoiceDennis Lim
A nostalgic coming-of-age sex comedy tastefully lecherous enough to indicate that its intended demographic is several decades past puberty. Read full review
20
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Feels more like "Porky's" with marinara sauce than "Summer of '42." Read full review
63
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Too often seems like a slightly silly film.
40
TimeRichard Schickel
Things finally work out all right--except for audiences, who will find this thin movie bereft of the more richly textured sentiments of Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso." Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineFrank Lovece
It differs from American films about the period in its evocation of day-to-day passion. The power of beauty is often dealt with in films, but not so often its powerful curse. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
You wish that Malena's inner life had been given as much accent as her outer charms. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
There is noting quite so awkward as a film that is one thing while it pretends to be another. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
When the film changes gears from light coming-of-age comedy to ex-post-facto war parable midway through, it loses its focus and suddenly becomes a much darker beast. Read full review
50
VarietyDavid Rooney
Combining a coming-of-age story with the sad odyssey of a woman punished for her beauty, the film ultimately has too little depth, subtlety, thematic consequence or contemporary relevance.
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
No period of Italian history has produced more great movies than the WWII years . But, Malena romanticizes and even sentimentalizes those years.
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
If Mussolini had a Monica Bellucci to inspire his troops, we might still be trying to take Palermo. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Nothing new here except model-turned-actress Bellucci. To call her noteworthy would be an understatement. Read full review
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