100
It may be a timely film, but it is its timelessness, as well as its depths of compassion, that qualify it as a great one.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
83
While the storytelling grows frustratingly elliptical, Lelio so desperate to constrain the drama that he resorts to removing helpful pieces of it, the scenes that remain are succinct and evocative.
100
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
Shocking and enraging, funny and surreal, rapturous and restorative, this is a film of startling intensity and sinuous mood shifts wrapped in a rock-solid coherence of vision.
83
Timely issues of transgender rights both in Latin and North America help make A Fantastic Woman a bolder, brasher film, fiery in comparison with Gloria’s relatively tenderness, but anchored once more by a stellar central performance
80
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Emily Yoshida
I just wish Vega and Lelio let us in a little more to see her as an individual, aside from the hostility she encounters.
100
Vega’s tough, expressive, subtly anguished performance deserves so much more than political praise. It’s a multi-layered, emotionally polymorphous feat of acting, nurtured with pitch-perfect sensitivity by her director, who maintains complete candor on Marina’s condition without pushing her anywhere she wouldn’t herself go.
75
The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
At its most compelling as a conventional character study of an unconventional female lead.
91
The superb Vega’s steady, liquid, fathomless gaze is so direct that we come to understand that behind it, behind the barricade of defenses she’s built up against an unfriendly world, she is no enigma at all: she is completely known to herself.
100
It's how the film handles grief and alienation which makes Marina's story so compelling.
100
Screen International by Wendy Ide
Driven by a powerhouse performance by mesmerising transgender actress Vega, the fifth feature from Sebastián Lelio combines urgent naturalism with occasional flickers of fantasy to impressive, and wrenchingly emotional effect.
Such a powerful film and amazing performance by Daniela Vega. This film has so much compassion and respect for Marina and the grieving process.
This film depicts realistic and heartbreaking aspects of the disrespect and dehumanization that Marina is subjected to, but never wavers from the deep deep kindness toward its protagonist that serves as the through-line for the movie.