75
In less assured hands, this could have wound up as a disaster, but director Edouard Molinaro was skillfully able to film the long-running play and wring every drop of humor from it.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
Though its politics are still quite progressive, La Cage aux Folles is ultimately a work of classicism, crafted with precision and efficiently paced.
80
CineVue by Christopher Machell
Later remade as The Bird Cage, this first adaptation of Jean Poiret’s play is as moving as it is hilarious in its depiction of moral hypocrisy and familial love.
50
It’s funny in a coarse, obvious way, and it probably would have been a laugh riot had director Edouard Molinaro possessed even an elementary sense of timing. Still, it’s not very honorable: this is one of those sitcoms, like The Jeffersons, that “explain” a minority to middle-class audiences by making their members cute, cuddly, and harmlessly eccentric.
88
The fabulous 1970s fashions don’t hold up too well, but what still resonates is the movie’s empathetic attention to what it’s like if your sexual identity doesn’t neatly fit into traditional norms.
60
Without challenging viewers’ notions of how gay men behave, the film shamed its homophobic characters while showing a loving family headed by longtime same-sex partners who are embraced by their community—boas, makeup, and all. Albin and Renato were onto something. It was the rest of the world’s job to catch up.
83
Entertainment Weekly by Keith Staskiewicz
Like many of the best farces, from The Importance of Being Earnest to Cactus Flower, it draws its humor from characters pretending to be something they’re not.
40
Despite delicate performances, the lead characters never escape stereotype, and the relationship between them, which should be the emotional heart of the movie, never becomes remotely convincing even on an I Love Lucy level.
88
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
This is basically the first sitcom in drag, and the comic turns in the plot are achieved with such clockwork timing that sometimes we're laughing at what's funny and sometimes we're just laughing at the movie's sheer comic invention. This is a great time at the movies.
40
The New York Times by Vincent Canby
La Cage aux Folles is naughty in the way of comedies that pretend to be sophisticated but actually serve to reinforce the most popular conventions and most witless stereotypes.