The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Miramax Films | Release Date: November 30, 2007 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
92
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The film is a masterpiece in which “locked-in” syndrome becomes the human condition. Read full review
100
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Schnabel’s movie, based on the calm and exquisite little book that Bauby wrote in the hospital, is a gloriously unlocked experience, with some of the freest and most creative uses of the camera and some of the most daring, cruel, and heartbreaking emotional explorations that have appeared in recent movies. Read full review
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Schnabel, screenwriter Ronald Harwood and Spielberg's great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski have found a way to take us inside Bauby's mind--his memories, his fantasies, his loves and lusts--transforming a story of physical entrapment and spiritual renewal into exhilarating images. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
Every performer in the international cast -- Seigner, de Bankole, von Sydow (magnificent as Bauby's father), and the late Jean-Pierre Cassel to name but a few -- completely disappears into each of their roles, which I think is as much a testament to Schnabel's talents as to theirs. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The movie has done what those who've cherished the book might have thought impossible -- intensified its singular beauty by roving as free and fearlessly as Bauby's mind did. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Amalric is extraordinary, creating a character literally without moving a muscle. Read full review
100
New York PostLou Lumenick
You won't have a more viscerally emotional experience at the movies this year. Read full review
100
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The picture is so imaginatively made, so attuned to sensual pleasure, so keyed in to the indescribable something that makes life life, that it speaks of something far more elemental than mere filmmaking skill: This is what movies, at their best, can be. Read full review
100
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
Director Julian Schnabel and screenwriter Ronald Harwood have performed a small miracle in adapting for the screen Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiography The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
It is wonderful: a rhapsodic adaptation of a memoir, a visual marvel that wraps its subject in screen romanticism without romanticizing his affliction. It left me feeling euphoric. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Thanks to Bauby's courageous and honest writing, and Schnabel's poetic interpretation, what could have been a portrait of impotence and suffering becomes a lively exploration of consciousness and a soaring ode to liberation. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
At the end we are left with the reflection that human consciousness is the great miracle of evolution, and all the rest (sight, sound, taste, hearing, smell, touch) are simply a toolbox that consciousness has supplied for itself. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
he Diving Bell and the Butterfly fuses experimental techniques with a highly accessible and sometimes humorous narrative; it’s deeply personal yet universal in its humanism. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The adjective “inspirational” doesn't do justice to the quality of Schnabel's film. Read full review
100
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
Schnabel's film is so steeped in the visual that it is surely the purest of cinema. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly provides an ecstatic lift for movielovers, despite the tragic subject. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Moviegoers are turned off by depressing topics, yet "Diving Bell" supplies something film fans claim they want: pure escapism, the chance to experience extreme sensations virtually none of us will ever have. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The most beautiful movie ever made about a man who could only move one eyelid -- almost dangerously beautiful. Read full review
91
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
In a film that overwhelmingly avoids happy-faced pronouncements, this one sticks out. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubTasha Robinson
Schnabel's sleepy, drifty, at times morbidly funny film tackles something more ambitious, by getting into the head of someone who's trying to get out of there himself. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Mathieu Amalric, best known as an arms dealer in "Munich." In a role that strips him entirely of vanity and denies him virtually every expressive tool, Amalric makes a genuinely touching impression. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
In his memoir Mr. Bauby performed a heroic feat of alchemy, turning horror into wisdom, and Mr. Schnabel, following his example and paying tribute to his accomplishment, has turned pity into joy. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Simultaneously uplifting and melancholy, suffused with an unexpected sense of possibility as much as the inevitable sense of loss. Read full review
90
SlateDana Stevens
With the help of brilliant French actor Mathieu Amalric, Spielberg's longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, and screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Pianist), Schnabel has made a marvelous film that uses images with as much grace and flair as Bauby used words. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleJosh Rosenblatt
Could easily have tipped over into melodrama, but Schnabel is too much an artist to let that happen; he realizes that in order to make his hero truly substantial, and not just sympathetic, he has to present him as an ordinary man making the best of extraordinarily lousy circumstances. By doing so he’s created a character we not only marvel at but identify with. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The movie will wipe you out. Schnabel's previous two films (Basquiat, Before Night Falls) also focused on artists. But this is his best film yet, a high-wire act of visual daring and unquenchable spirit. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
He even calls the majestic view from one of the hospital landings his Cinecittà, after the legendary Italian film studio. The movie is a Cinecittà of the mind. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
The film is more than laborious eye-blinking - it's also dazzling visually, its potent imagery conjured by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. But finally, Diving Bell is about something imperceptible: consciousness. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The movie never falls into gushy moments of inspiration and Schnabel never tries to manipulate any particular response from the audience. We're left to make of it what we will. Read full review
80
VarietyJustin Chang
Most compelling in its attempts to re-create the experience of paralysis onscreen, gorgeously lensed pic morphs into a dreamlike collage of memories and fantasies, distancing the viewer somewhat from Bauby's consciousness even as it seeks to take one deeper. Read full review
80
EmpireAlan Morrison
A poignant reflection on what it means to be alive and, visually, a true cinematic experience. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Whereas the book was lyrical and moving, the movie is surrealistic and inventive. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
Take us on an indelible tour through the highest and lowest points of the human experience. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
By the end, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly achieves a victory over difficult material, but celebrating that fact doesn't preclude recognizing the story is not a natural for movies and remains an uneasy match. Read full review
50
Village VoiceScott Foundas
Far too often, though, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly feels grotesquely calculated, especially the more Schnabel ratchets up the inspirational platitudes of exactly the sort that Bauby--who maintained an acerbic sense of humor about his situation until the very end--would have despised. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Schickel
Still, somewhat shame-faced I have to admit that at some point in the film I began to hear a subversive voice whispering in my ear, and what it was saying was, "Could you blink a little faster, pal?" Read full review
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