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Planetarium

✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

France, Belgium · 2016
1h 49m
Director Rebecca Zlotowski
Starring Natalie Portman, Lily-Rose Depp, Emmanuel Salinger, Amira Casar
Genre Drama, Fantasy, Mystery

In 1930s France, two American sisters, Laura and Kate, perform public seánces at cabarets. One day, their spiritual act piques the interest of French film producer Korben, who wishes to film them. Soon after, Laura begins to pursue a career in acting while Korben becomes obsessed with discovering the truth behind Kate's supernatural gift to summon the ghosts.

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What are critics saying?

50

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

A beautiful wisp of an idea that is seldom compelling and almost never coherent, Planetarium squanders an irresistibly alluring premise.

60

Screen International by Graham Fuller

Rebecca Zlotowski’s third feature packs in so many ideas and themes, and boasts so many ravishing and enigmatic images, that it seems choked with riches.

80

CineVue by John Bleasdale

Few of Planetarium's many strands are neatly tied together. There's an ambition to almost every shot as Zlotowski creates a rarified version of nighttime Paris.

40

The Hollywood Reporter by Jon Frosch

The movie is all tease and no follow-through, letting its story leak out in dribs and drabs that fail to gather any momentum or meaning, let alone mystery.

50

The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo

Numerous potentially interesting ideas orbit one another in Planetarium, but none boasts sufficient gravity to merit a landing, it seems.

50

The Film Stage by Nick Newman

Little is left after a while until, finally, Planetarium doesn’t conclude so much as come to an end, and the lasting impression is one of bitterness — a bitterness at once sweetened and worsened by memories of the genuinely great work it had promised and, at turns, even embodied.

30

Variety by Owen Gleiberman

Planetarium is an inert and slipshod movie — messy and aimless, a period tale told with zero period atmosphere (you have to keep reminding yourself that it’s not taking place in 2016), built around a situation with enough possibilities to make you wish that the director, Rebecca Zlotowski, had taken advantage of at least one of them.

40

TheWrap by Robert Abele

Though its mix of European romanticism, lustrous trappings, and nostalgic movie love can occasionally make Planetarium feel like a galaxy all its own, the effect is more illusory than enveloping.

42

The Playlist by Rodrigo Perez

To her credit, Zlotowski’s film does capture the lulling feeling of a séance, but there’s a gossamer-thin thread between the mysterious and the mystifying and perhaps her delicately ephemeral film just doesn’t know how to recognize the difference.

38

Slant Magazine by Wes Greene

Given all its clumsily executed genre detours and tonal fluctuations, Rebecca Zlutowski’s film suggests an amateur juggling act.

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