Wall Street Journal by Kyle Smith

Lost Illusions is sumptuous yet piercing, an expertly plotted social-relations saga of the kind that once typified prestige Hollywood cinema, and it dives into moral quandaries rather than dispensing easy bromides.

Wall Street Journal

Lost Illusions is sumptuous yet piercing, an expertly plotted social-relations saga of the kind that once typified prestige Hollywood cinema, and it dives into moral quandaries rather than dispensing easy bromides.

Variety by Peter Debruge

This sweeping period drama may be up to its eyeballs in costumes and carriages, but it plays with all the brio and jeopardy of a modern-day gangster movie, featuring hack journalists as its antiheroes.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

Giannoli illuminates the dank frenzy of the 19th-century attention economy with an eye on our own post-truth era. Lost Illusions is sensational. Nobody paid me to say that. Well, actually, The New York Times did, but you should believe me anyway.

Austin Chronicle by Steve Davis

Don’t let the early 19th-century France setting of this adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s serialized novel Illusions Perdues fool you into assuming Lost Illusions is just another stuffy period piece lacking in modern sensibility.

Washington Post by Pat Padua

Harbor no illusions about Lost Illusions. It’s no stuffy costume drama. Just close your eyes and imagine its characters in modern dress, toiling away in digital publishing, and its wild delusions and deceptions could be happening right now.

TheWrap by William Bibbiani

Gianolli’s grand adaptation isn’t just a wicked send-up and a sensual period piece; it’s a poignant reminder that everyone who thinks they’ve cleverly sussed out the wickedness of mass media is hundreds of years behind the rest of the history class. Like the best stories told about earlier times, “Lost Illusions” feels remarkably contemporary.

Collider by Rafael Motamayor

Lost Illusions may not break the mold in the way Goodfellas did, but it does provide a fun, provocative, hilarious, and at times even moving rags-to-riches tale with a protagonist and a setting we have not seen before.

The Playlist by Asher Luberto

A rich, old-fashioned story spun out of modern themes and postmodern storytelling, this film’s decade-long, country-wide examination of art, life, love, and, yes, illusion, has the kind of tone that brings to mind “The Sweet Smell of Success.” It’s a film of smirks and surprises, not least of which is that director Giannoli has taken this material and given it a tragic spin.

The Hollywood Reporter by Lovia Gyarkye

With its stellar performances, dramatic orchestral score and rich costume and set design, Illusions Perdues is a worthwhile, sweeping narrative of love, lust and literary ambition.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

It’s acted with such terrific panache that not enjoying it is impossible.

Slant Magazine by William Repass

Lost Illusions leans heavily on voiceover narration that, for better or worse, draws attention to its novelistic mode of its storytelling.

Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney

It’s a shame that Giannoli’s film, while ambitious, confidently executed and more than honourable, nevertheless feels like something of a relic.

The Film Stage by Ethan Vestby

By condensing a 600-page-plus epic into a two-and-a-half-hour film, the sense of thought and detail that immortalizes Balzac isn’t translated.