It’s the brains behind the brawn that makes Brawl in Cell Block 99 one of the year’s highlights in the action genre.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
Nico, 1988 offers all I want from this kind of movie: a sense of what time with someone unknowable might have been like.
Thanks to the fleshed out messiness of Dyrholm’s performance, and how eerily the former Eurovision contestant brings Nico back to life whenever she sings, the movie is able to support the sketchiness of its approach.
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
Dyrholm is at her multifaceted best here in the glammed-down, uglified role of an older rock ‘n' roll star on the skids.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Ms. Dyrholm, photographed frequently in brutally unforgiving close-up, fully captures the faded charisma of the woman whose life reads like a Who’s Who of the New York midcentury art scene.
Danish singer and actress Trine Dyrholm plays the diva with verve and energy, in a portrait which is also something of a reevaluation.
In Dyrholm, Nicchiarelli found the ideal partner to bring to life such an iconic figure. The Danish actress channels Christa’s larger than life presence, her sardonic charm, and most surprising of all: her singing voice.
Dyrholm’s performance is a powerhouse of authenticity. Her moroseness is mesmerizing, but she also gives Nico a tense intelligence, and her singing is uncanny.
Screen International by Sarah Ward
Nicchiarelli brings broader contemplations that help lift the film beyond the usual run-through of sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, regrets, righting past wrongs, carving out meaningful relationships with those previously neglected along the way, and facing the future on one’s own terms.
The unflashy, austere visual style of the film is but a veneer over writer-director Susanna Nicchiarelli's deceptively radical treatment of the musical biopic.