I was rather charmed by it. No, it doesn't change the world, no it doesn't do anything that's groundbreaking other than give Udo Kier the chance to show just how broad and sympathetic his range can be.

| Jan 18, 2024

Inspired by a real-life Sandusky, Ohio legend, writer-director Todd Stephens crafts an impeccable odyssey that ponders love, loss, and attitudinal changes. “I wouldn’t even know how to be gay any more,” Pat tells Eunice, almost despairingly.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 16, 2022

Stephens’s film is an amiable little story, and Kier is clearly enjoying himself immensely, but this is as wafting and insubstantial as Patrick’s chiffon scarf.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 12, 2022

Kier’s immaculately polished performance tightens the reigns as his expression expertly flits between haunted melancholy and stoic bravado to capture Pat’s regret and potential forgiveness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 10, 2022

It is a treat all round, but impossible to picture without Kier in the lead: star power raging against the dying of the light to a defiant disco beat.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 10, 2022

If it’s possible for a prolific septuagenarian to be a revelation, Udo Kier is exactly that.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 10, 2022

Another intriguing persona in the Udo Kier gallery.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 8, 2022

While there's beauty in his encounters, the pacing is almost too quaint, often relying too much on Pat's effervescent charm in Swan Song's meandering script.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 17, 2021

It's quite a film Stephens has made.

| Aug 12, 2021

It's lovely to see Kier, a workhouse German character actor, in his first leading role in, apparently, 50 years.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 11, 2021

Udo Kier's best performance.

| Aug 10, 2021

It's the 76-year-old Kier's tremendous performance that centers the movie.

| Aug 8, 2021

It's tempting to say this sweet, shaggy film isn't quite worthy of him, but let's not be so hasty. Any film that invites the actor to do this much -- and to do most of it clad in a spearmint-colored women's safari suit -- deserves his good grace.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 6, 2021

Swan Song is an instance where I absolutely loved the character, but disliked how his story was ultimately told. Your mileage may vary.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 6, 2021

A little too broad at times, "Swan Song" smartly balances its excesses with small, sweet moments that leave an impression...

| Aug 5, 2021

With his pellucid blue eyes and haughty presentation, Kier is so physically striking that he barely needs to do anything to hold the screen.

| Aug 5, 2021

Kier is unfailingly captivating in the film, which makes it all the more bothersome that the film itself doesn't match him.

| Aug 5, 2021

Swan Song can be clumsy and sentimental at times, but that's sometimes the cost of earnestness.

| Original Score: B | Aug 5, 2021

The disconnect between the struggles of different generations of gay men is one of Swan Song's most joyful through lines.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 3, 2021

How do you make a movie without having a single scene turn out well by accident? In this way, "Swan Song" may be worthy of future study.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 2, 2021