60
A serious-minded, often beautiful, utterly heartfelt character study that nevertheless lacks its astonishing protagonist’s fleet-footedness and only partly captures what made him tick.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
The film’s constant waltz between moods is aggravating at best. It becomes unclear whether we are even supposed to root for Rudolf, or if it matters that we do.
60
An interesting, challenging mess. The White Crow offers lots that’s impressive — Ivenko as Nureyev, the dance sequences, a knuckle-whitening last 20 minutes — but can’t render it in a dramatically engaging way.
80
An evocative portrait ... Fiennes utilises a good balance of biography and ballet; emphasising how much Nureyev loved to dance and why, when forced, he chose artistic freedom over love of country.
50
Ralph Fiennes’s film too conspicuously avoids an overt political perspective.
60
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
Hare cleverly suggests Nureyev’s mixture of courage, hauteur, emotional damage and cool self-appraisal; the Soviet authorities cannot threaten him through his family because he long ago left them behind. An athletic, confident, undemanding film.
80
Lovely, elegant, and curiously opaque ... The film’s many ballet scenes are stunning, to say the least.
40
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
Writer David Hare and director Ralph Fiennes have a good feel for the artistic world the story inhabits and professional dancer Oleg Ivenko does a more than creditable job in personifying one of the 20th century’s most celebrated artistic figures, but the narrative bounces all over the place trying to cover too much ground when concentrating on the core drama would have far better served the desired end.
40
The cluttered structure, littered with brusque little flashbacks, repeatedly interrupts the momentum and tension of the story of Nureyev’s most daring leap.