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The Face of an Angel

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United Kingdom, Italy, Spain · 2014
1h 40m
Director Michael Winterbottom
Starring Daniel Brühl, Kate Beckinsale, Cara Delevingne, Ava Acres
Genre Drama, Thriller

Both a journalist and a documentary filmmaker chase the story of a murder and its prime suspect.

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What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

20

New York Daily News by

How do you make one of the decade’s most sensational crimes boring? It’s an odd trick, but director Michael Winterbottom manages it in The Face of an Angel, a stubbornly dull retelling of the famous Italian case.

60

CineVue by Ben Nicholson

Winterbottom's The Face of an Angel makes for compelling viewing, painting an arresting character portrait even if it avoids the direct engagement with the original (and much-discussed) crime that some people may have been expecting.

60

Empire by Ian Nathan

On one level a fascinating refraction of the Amanda Knox trial into an examination of perception, on another an increasingly trying hall of mirrors.

50

The A.V. Club by Jesse Hassenger

Past Winterbottom films have turned “real life” into both comedy and tragedy. The Face Of An Angel turns it into a directionless skulk.

42

The Playlist by Kevin Jagernauth

The idea of turning a true crime story into a intellectual cinematic exercise is novel, and could be witty and sharp, but 'Angel' never comes across that way.

40

The Telegraph by Mike McCahill

Winterbottom’s shapeshifting spontaneity has long seemed as much limitation as virtue, characteristic of a filmmaker unable or unwilling to commit to his own better ideas. Here, you feel him hedging around his subject, less out of sensitivity than a constitutional evasiveness, an inability to formulate a clear line of argument.

50

Village Voice by Simon Abrams

The Face of an Angel may not be like any other whodunit you've seen, but it's also only superficially smarter than the genre it defines itself against.

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