To Die Like a Man deserves your attention for showcasing a filmmaker with the capacity for bold narrative trickery that doesn't come at the expense of emotional investment.
To Die Like a Man(Morrer Como Um Homem)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Portugal, France · 2009
2h 13m
Director João Pedro Rodrigues
Starring Fernando Santos, Alexander David, Gonçalo Ferreira De Almeida, Chandra Malatitch
Genre Drama, Music
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Tonia, a veteran of Lisbon’s drag shows, faces competition from younger artists that threatens her star status. Under pressure from her young boyfriend Rosário to assume her female identity, and get gender reassignment surgery, Tonia struggles against her deeply-held religious convictions.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
A mysterious, fabulously sad fable.
The film suddenly gains in power, until it fulfills the promise of its title with hard-hitting compassion and a crystal-clear sense of grace.
To Die Like A Man is powerfully controlled, and builds to a moving finale in which the characters are stripped down to their essences: no flowers, just stem.
Boxoffice Magazine by Richard Mowe
Strictly for patient, gay-friendly audiences, this drawn-out melodrama about an ageing drag star in overstays its welcome.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
The title leaves no doubt about the ending but, thanks to Santos's unflinching performance and Rodrigues's continued audaciousness, the climax still takes us aback.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
For all its melodrama To Die Like a Man is a not a tearjerker. Its gaze into the void is as unblinking as that of the H.I.V.-positive 60-year-old hustler in Jacques Nolot's even more hard-headed film, "Before I Forget."
The praise for this static, overlong, stagebound work is a mystery to me.
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