Squabbling scenes between Kingsley and Sukowa make the enterprise worthwhile, but there are too many exchanges that attempt to shoehorn in backstory and context and even more fudges, most notably around Dalí’s sexual proclivities.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2023

The great missed opportunity of this film, with its glossy, handsome design and cinematography, and its genteel orchestral score, is how polite and unadventurous it is – something that could never be said of Dalí himself.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 15, 2023

Dalíland has its moments, but too often, it’s as saggy as a Camembert timepiece.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 13, 2023

[Kingsley] consistently highlights the movie’s inadequacies via his own incomparable abilities.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 12, 2023

[A] run-of-the-mill drama... with a level of unoriginality that would surely have appalled Dalí as much as spinach.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 5, 2023

You won’t learn much about Dali’s work but Kingsley and Sukowa seize the chance to exploit the couple’s flair for theatricality in all its forms.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 14, 2023

Ben Kingsley and Barbara Sukowa ham it up as Dalí and Gala, but there is no other way to portray this pair. It is a testament to Harron’s skill that she’s able to make these despicable and delusional monsters sympathetic...

| Jun 23, 2023

You're expecting more visual wonder than this has... It just feels dull.

| Jun 13, 2023

Further proof, if you need it, of how hard it is to make a good film about a great artist – or even Salvador Dalí.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 9, 2023

The movie’s commonplaces don’t serve its singular subject—love him or hate him—all that well.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 9, 2023

The power of Kingsley’s performance is more than a matter of his own precise and expansive artistry; it’s a matter of a shrewd script, by John Walsh, and of Harron’s fervent attention to its essence.

| Jun 9, 2023

Somewhere in “Dalíland” is a far sharper film about this unusual pair... But through James’ point of view, it’s just another coming-of-age tale for a young white man who finds himself tickled and intrigued by this seeming den of artistic iniquity.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 9, 2023

Sinfully fun feature.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 8, 2023

The thoroughly unengaging film is a remarkable achievement, but only considering the misspent potential of its juicy source material.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 8, 2023

Harron’s result is less a consummate portrait and more a distillation of a sensibility, as if she had dropped Dalí in an alcohol still to extract his very essence.

| Jun 8, 2023

The cumulative effect of all the movie’s moments add up to a satisfying portrait.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 5, 2023

The film renders Salvador Dalí’s final years with a self-negating blend of pity and devotion.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 4, 2023

On paper, Dalíland has all the elements of a fascinating character study. In practice, it’s more of a rote exercise.

| Original Score: C | Sep 20, 2022

It’s based on historical facts and real-life characters, yet it feels timeless and allegorical.

| Sep 20, 2022

Unfortunately, although James allows the audience a surrogate into the wild world in which Dalí and Gala live, he doesn’t prove to be all that interesting as an observer, nor does Christopher Briney prove himself a compelling leading man.

| Sep 20, 2022