It raises interesting questions about cults of personality, our inability to deal with aging, and how we can use the people around us to get what we want. That’s not exactly surrealism, nor is it realism. It’s just Hollywood.
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What are critics saying?
Mary Harron is too good a director to make a drab, conventional biopic, so it’s disappointing to report that with Dalíland, she’s done just that. It’s not a complete waste, and she manages to insert a handful of distinctive flourishes and memorable characters. But the picture never escapes the box it’s been placed in or transcends a key, fundamental error in its conception.
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Mary Harron’s Dalíland revolves around the titular Surrealist, played with restraint and dignity by Ben Kingsley, while gently nudging the spotlight in the direction of his complicated wife/muse Gala, a role in which Barbara Sukowa more than earns the movie’s attention.
For all its promises of an inside look into the Dalís’ lifestyle, the film never does much more than document it.
Daliland dials up the actorly pyrotechnics, but it’s all spectacle without insight, failing to lay a foundation for why this long-running marriage, despite its volatility, endured.