Martin Eden
Kino Lorber | Release Date: October 16, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriOct 20, 2020
The film is a masterpiece, so you should see it any way you can. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangOct 15, 2020
Hopefulness and rawness, much like society and the self, are ultimately inextricable in “Martin Eden,” a work of art that abounds in its own beautiful contradictions. It might reject individualism, but it’s also a glorious singularity. Read full review
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 15, 2020
The true miracle of this film is how Marcello translates both London’s scabrous tone and his lush, character-revealing prose into pure cinema. Lines have been plucked from the novel, yet even at its wordiest, the film is never weighed down by the burden of faithfulness. Read full review
100
The PlaylistLuke HicksOct 10, 2019
Marcello brilliantly captures the circular nature of the perpetual expanse between the working class and the elite in the dense characterization of his subjects and the dialogue surrounding the rejection of Martin’s early writing. Read full review
91
The Film StageKyle PletcherAug 23, 2021
Martin Eden marks a breathtakingly ambitious sophomore effort from Pietro Marcello, balancing elegant melodramatic storytelling with a fascinatingly oblique character study, gracefully mixing non-fiction and fiction narrative styles in the process. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshOct 14, 2020
Pietro Marcello’s sweeping historical Italian epic Martin Eden is a whole lot of movie. It possesses a weight and heft, both cinematically and philosophically, that make it a rare treat. And at the center of the film is a whole lot of movie star: Luca Marinelli’s performance in the title role is an outstanding star turn for the Italian actor. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 14, 2020
The tragedy of this grand and artful movie is that the individuality Martin craves to make him stand out leaves him in the end standing very much alone. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyNov 16, 2020
There is much to admire and contemplate in Martin Eden, including Marinelli’s performance, the marvelous range of faces that appear onscreen, the disorienting time shifts and melancholic seascapes that form many backdrops. While the tension between Martin’s right-wing superman fantasies and working-class status is a rich field, it’s not obvious that there’s a coherent intellectual framework behind the collage of beautiful moments. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubBeatrice LoayzaOct 13, 2020
Yet without dumbing down its message, Marcello’s sweeping Künstlerroman has all the pleasurable characteristics of a simmering romance and a poignant tragedy, too. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Simran HansJul 11, 2021
If writing is a democratic art and social leveller, Marcello indicts the celebrity author as a sellout, steamrolling their way to success. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJul 8, 2021
Martin Eden is a sad story of a sad man who lacks the capacity for happiness and who is astonished to find that artistic success is as compromised as any other kind. But there is a kind of thrill in tracing his progress from rags to riches to annihilation. Read full review
80
Time OutDave CalhounJul 7, 2021
It’s a daring spin on history and the power, or otherwise, of the individual: a puzzle that is well worth trying to solve. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleJul 6, 2021
The film’s strongest element and most necessary comes with Luca Marinelli’s performance. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 19, 2020
There is more to ponder, in this uncommon movie, than there is to plumb. Broad rather than deep, and layering the vintage with the modern, it’s a collage of shifting surfaces — an appropriate form for a pilgrim soul like Martin, whose gifts, though plentiful, do not include a talent for staying still. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineGreg CwikSep 12, 2019
Pietro Marcello’s film works better as a story of self-loathing and self-destruction than it does as a social critique or political statement. Read full review
60
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 6, 2019
Marcello and his committed, compelling lead actor Luca Marinelli deliver an always watchable take on the hoary old story of the struggling artist that is more interesting in its shape-shifting style and texture than in its rather conventional dramatic core. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 6, 2019
This spry yet increasingly bitter romantic drama is so vague and un-targeted that its social critiques feel less defined than ever. The anger is palpable, but its targets are hard to pinpoint. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 14, 2020
This meandering Pietro Marcello (“Lost and Beautiful”) film seems to exist out of time, a fictional “struggling artist” biography as rife with cliches as it is obtuse in story and message. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijSep 6, 2019
Marcello never quite manages to shoehorn in both more than a century’s worth of European struggles and sociopolitical thinking and the full story of Eden’s downfall after he’s finally become successful. Indeed, these weighty concerns capsize the entire enterprise in the final stretch, where the story runs aground on an iceberg of undigested ideas, barely developed themes and bad hair choices. Read full review
50
VarietyJay WeissbergSep 6, 2019
The outcome is an unwieldy intellectual sprawl whose incontestable visual pleasures (much like Marcello’s “Lost and Beautiful”) distract from the shallow characterizations. ... The overarching impression is of a film too much in thrall to theory. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleSteve DavisOct 15, 2020
Every so often, a spark in Marinelli’s mesmerizing blue-gray eyes flickers and you can imagine the passion that drove the man to his madness. In those moments, Martin Eden subtly flames, if only briefly. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonOct 16, 2020
It’s a slog at over two hours, much of it spent with Marinelli screaming or acting coarse. Read full review
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