70
Director Deepa Mehta ambitiously juxtaposes a teenage love story with rising political tensions and ethnic violence in a film that is ultimately about thriving and sometimes just surviving as someone deemed “different.”
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Mehta skillfully navigates both the tender sequences and the more devastating ones. Aided by Howard Shore's rousing musical score, she portrays a beautiful country ripped apart by social violence. Her film serves as an ode to those who either died or were forced into exile for having the courage to express their true identities.
50
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
Mehta’s elaborate long takes contribute to the general sense of tumult, but the film never fully shakes the sense of stating the obvious.
60
In the end the story is told rather blandly, the edges sentimentally smoothed down.
91
Funny Boy is a luminous coming-of-age tale seen through the eyes of a relatable yet entirely unique experience.
75
The urge to find hope in tragedy is as inevitable as the one to recognize shapes in clouds. But Funny Boy leaves an unsettling chasm between this one slender story and the grim history it represents.
63
Funny Boy is valuable in letting us see this world and this history through different eyes.
50
RogerEbert.com by Roxana Hadadi
Funny Boy falters when trying to link together the personal and political, making for a well-intentioned film that never delivers much depth.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Tina Hassannia
There is so much going on in this film, much of it so rich in detail, that you wonder how better the original material might work as a television series.
70
Los Angeles Times by Tracy Brown
Director Deepa Mehta ambitiously juxtaposes a teenage love story with rising political tensions and ethnic violence in a film that is ultimately about thriving and sometimes just surviving as someone deemed “different.”