Saturday Fiction
Strand Releasing | Release Date: April 22, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
5
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New YorkerRichard BrodyApr 25, 2022
It’s as daring and original a work of political cinema and personal conscience as the current cinema can offer. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineSam C. MacOct 4, 2019
The hegemony of history is rigid, but Lou Ye is still able to disrupt it in the form of its representation. Read full review
80
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 12, 2019
Saturday Fiction certainly demands patience, shrouded at first in a smog of exposition. Read full review
75
The Film StageMark AschSep 14, 2019
A movie stuffed to bursting with sumptuous movie-movie atmosphere, the swoony charge of ideas about art, love, and espionage, and good-enough storytelling solutions. Read full review
60
The New York TimesDevika GirishApr 21, 2022
Star power is a logic unto itself, and Lou has ensured a limitless supply by casting Gong as an actress-spy. She conveys depths of pain and longing even when the script offers none, seducing us as effortlessly as Jean seduces her enemies. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijSep 12, 2019
This moody, black-and-white period piece always intrigues, even if it only intermittently catches fire. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 12, 2019
Mesmeric but frustrating ... An explosive third act shootout may be the most remarkable sequence that Lou has ever shot, but all of the hard-boiled fireworks in the world can’t diminish the feeling that he can’t identify his muse on a canvas this big. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleApr 21, 2022
As convolutedly scripted by Ma Yingli, and pushed around by the restless camerawork, it’s primarily a spotty fusion of spy-story contrivances and diffuse themes of truth and artifice, although the playground is plenty evocative. Read full review
40
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 12, 2019
The narrative would be sufficiently daunting to follow if the film didn’t make such heavy play on the thin line between fiction and reality; the frequent blurring between the two Saturday Fictions – Lou Ye’s and Tan Na’s – is muddily executed to begin with, without the play being so unconvincing as a piece of stage drama. Read full review
30
TheWrapSimon AbramsApr 20, 2022
This sleepy and visually murky black-and-white drama belabors the same banal truisms about memory and role-playing during wartime –basically, it’s impossible to maintain your autonomy when you’re only a pawn in a complicated game — and tends to be more interesting to think about than to watch. Read full review
20
VarietyJessica KiangSep 12, 2019
[A] grandiloquently incoherent misfire Read full review
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