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United Kingdom · 1992
Rated PG · 1h 25m
Director Terence Davies
Starring Leigh McCormack, Marjorie Yates, Anthony Watson, Nicholas Lamont
Genre Drama
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Set in 1950s Liverpool, The Long Day Closes follows Bud, a lonely young boy from a working class family. Struggling with his sexuality and bullied at school, Bud copes with his alienation through film, spending hours a day at his local movie theater.
Though Davies says this is a celebration of what were the best years of his life — he had a doting mum, nice sisters, and school was apparently okay — you'd hate to see what he'd produce if he were depressed, for the overall mood is heavy and glum.
What’s uniquely remarkable about The Long Day Closes, Terence Davies’ 1992 return to his own childhood, is how gloriously disorganized its story feels.
Strength of Davies’ vision is the crux, and it holds the line to the final, confident fadeout.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
The Long Day Closes is very much the visual equivalent of a verse or a poem: beautiful images, but no narrative.
Chicago Tribune by John Petrakis
Davies has said that he loves the "poetry of the ordinary." In that sense, he doesn't just wax nostalgic about the good old days, but rather, he makes us question and reevaluate those things we may not remember so readily-not the general, but the specific.
Miami Herald by Rene Rodriguez
What The Long Day Closes lacks is a narrative thread, however slim, to match the perfectly realized setting and wonderful visuals Davies has crafted. The whole thing feels like a chapter of a much larger work, one that, if finished, would doubtless prove more intriguing than what we get here. [7 Aug 1993, p.G5]
A singularly beautiful nostalgia piece that radiates with love and sadness, and doesn’t extract one type of feeling from another. It’s a film of aching bittersweetness, impeccably realized, past perfect.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
A deeply personal film, and at times a touching one, it is a collection of fragments and memories artfully pieced into a quirky, captivating book of dreams.
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