80
Bewildering in all the right ways, this is a poetic, sublime interpretation of a sorry story. An evocative, emotional experience, it pits humanity against inhumanity, resulting in something refreshingly new.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Screen International by Allan Hunter
The heady fusion of teenage romance, gothic fantasy and Mafia thriller becomes an immersive, atmospheric drama.
60
CineVue by Christopher Machell
While Sicilian Ghost Story doesn’t entirely fulfil its promise as a richly themed gothic romance, the visual craft on display throughout is more than enough to recommend.
38
The film is determinedly unclassifiable, blurring genres with a fervor that grows tedious.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
Despite some dead time and teenage moments, the film is lifted up by its belief in the imagination.
80
The filmmaking doesn’t simply tell a story but makes us feel its impact.
90
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
This beautifully realized movie casts a sensitive, secretive spell.
60
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It’s a film whose initial charge of mystery and intensity dissipates over its running time, the narrative impetus slows, and there is that question of tone that is very much not solved by the revelation at the end. These drawbacks are offset by the directors’ terrific confidence and visual style.
60
Summoning ghastly spectres of the real past, with the tragic ballast this one lends, always carries the risk that they’ll frighten mere fictions off the screen.
80
The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide
While the fantastical elements provide a distance for the audience from the bleak core of the story, they also heighten the sense of enveloping melancholy of this aching tale of thwarted first love.