Séraphine
Music Box Films | Release Date: June 5, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
84
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
What makes Seraphine, directed and co-written by Martin Provost, so exceptional is that it neither condescends to nor romanticizes its subject. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The scene is so emotionally ravishing that it breaks you apart. The peacefulness that finally descends on Séraphine in the film's final moments is more than a balm. It's a benediction. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It "explains" nothing but feels everything. It reminds me of two other films: Bresson's "Mouchette," about a poor girl victimized by a village, and Karen Gehre's "Begging Naked," shown at Ebertfest this year, about a woman whose art is prized even as she lives in Central Park. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyAdam Markovitz
Moreau is bewitching -- she simply breathes her role, without a hint of vanity. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianStan Hall
Among the best of its kind, thanks in no small part to the utterly believable, vanity-free performance of Yolande Moreau in the title role. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Séraphine is one of the most evocative films about an artist I've ever seen--and in its treatment of madness one of the least condescending. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Provost and cowriter Marc Abdelnour explore the mutable boundaries between spirituality, naivete, genius, and madness, showing how the two outsiders and polar opposites cultivated a mutual understanding. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
The rare movie that manages to convey the inner soul of an artist. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
What Moreau does with this role is as inscrutably moving as anything Séraphine Louis painted. Read full review
88
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
With exquisitely simple images and minimal dialogue, Seraphine is both haunting and humane. Read full review
80
VarietyEddie Cockrell
An extraordinary performance by vet thesp Yolande Moreau in the title role. Read full review
80
Village VoiceElla Taylor
Séraphine's dependence on her patron--a cultivated but emotionally detached homosexual, who knew a fellow outsider when he saw one but came and went in her life without warning--is almost as unbearably moving as her inevitable unraveling--when money and fame cut the artist off from her creative wellsprings and drove her over the edge. Read full review
80
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
The mystery of Séraphine de Senlis -- who died in a mental hospital in 1942 and whose work survives in some of the world’s leading museums -- is left intact at the end of Séraphine. Rather than trying to explain Séraphine, the film accepts her. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
Moving historical drama brings a fascinating chapter of art history to life. Read full review
80
NPRBob Mondello
Writer-director Martin Provost tells much of Seraphine's true-life story without words, lingering here on the process by which she makes paints, there on the obsessive single-mindedness she brings to her art. Read full review
80
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
The line between madness and genius is thin. Not to mention more than amply explored in any number of films about tortured artists. But to look at the almost religious ecstasy on Moreau's face is to feel the artist's passion and be inspired by it. Read full review
80
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Yolande Moreau's most impressive costars are the extraordinary compositions of Seraphine Louis. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
A genuinely moving portrait of the artist as a young(ish) scullery maid. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It is an actors' showcase, without being showy, and Moreau and Tukur reveal radically different personalities with just enough in common to make things interesting. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
We don't get a good look at a painting until 35 minutes into the film biography of Séraphine de Senlis, the early 20th-century French painter discovered by German art collector Wilhelm Uhde. The film Séraphine is not about paintings. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It's a movie about a scrubwoman who paints - so don't expect lots of sex scenes or car chases. Just expect a great performance by Moreau, who will convince you that she painted every one of those paintings - and lived them all before she painted them. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Séraphine is far more powerful when it lingers on Louis at work. Read full review
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