Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Little Ashes is absorbing but not compelling. Most of its action is inward.

The Hollywood Reporter

Ashes makes no claims to be an entirely accurate biopic; it's a speculative, impressionistic portrait without a lot of dramatic force or psychological depth. But it's an elegantly designed film that fascinates as often as it frustrates.

The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Farber

Ashes makes no claims to be an entirely accurate biopic; it's a speculative, impressionistic portrait without a lot of dramatic force or psychological depth. But it's an elegantly designed film that fascinates as often as it frustrates.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea

The Spanish actress Marina Gatell is exotic and engaging as a young writer drawn to Lorca and puzzled why he is not drawn to her in return.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

A painfully sincere study in creative passion, sexual ardor and political zeal that embalms a mad and exuberant historical moment within the talky, balky conventions of period-costumed highbrow soap opera.

San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego

Director Paul Morrison ("Wondrous Oblivion") nicely re-creates the period, but puts too much weight on the sexual relationship as determining the men's artistic courses.

Los Angeles Times

A trifling historical fantasy, gossip wrapped in gossamer, beautiful to watch but it takes only a light wind to leave the story in tatters.

USA Today by Claudia Puig

If you'd like to know about the famously eccentric psyche of surrealist artist Salvador Dali, whom Pattinson plays, you're better off consulting written biographies. Little Ashes does nothing to illuminate the iconic Spanish artist.

Village Voice by Melissa Anderson

A typically bombastic lives-of-the-artists production made even more stilted by having all the actors (including the Spanish ones) speak accented English.

Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan

Beltrn, for his part, makes a solidly believable Garca Lorca. The problem is with the man with whom he's obsessed. In Pattinson's performance, we never see what Garca Lorca sees in Dal.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Stephen Cole

Anyone interested in hearing the artist's heart-to-hearts properly translated is encouraged to seek out Leonard Cohen's flamenco serenade, "Take This Waltz."

Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey

A trifling historical fantasy, gossip wrapped in gossamer, beautiful to watch but it takes only a light wind to leave the story in tatters.

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

The film’s biggest problem, beyond the overheated melodrama and paper-thin period trappings, is that the trio's fictionalized dalliances diminish their real art.

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

I can't imagine what Dali or Buñuel would have made of such bourgeois sentimentality.

New York Post by Lou Lumenick

An exceedingly silly historical fantasy.