82
Metascore
28 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100CineVueJohn BleasdaleCineVueJohn BleasdaleGnecco has both breadth and subtlety. His Neruda is a complex and fascinating character study, a man fastidiously vain of his status but unconvinced by his own performance even as he enraptures a nation.
- 100VarietyJay WeissbergVarietyJay WeissbergSurprises always come at the end of Pablo Larraín’s films, when everything suddenly comes together and the audience sits in the cinema feeling both illuminated and floored. Neruda is no different, representing the director at his stunning best with a work of such cleverness and beauty, alongside such power, that it’s hard to know how to parcel out praise.
- 91The PlaylistJessica KiangThe PlaylistJessica KiangA dexterous, mischievous, almost incomprehensibly intelligent film that has such invention packed into every frame that the only real danger is overload, Neruda works most thrillingly as an effusive love letter to the very concept of fiction and all the ways it can set you free, written in lyrical but staccato meter, perhaps with a rose between the teeth.
- 90We Got This CoveredLauren Humphries-BrooksWe Got This CoveredLauren Humphries-BrooksAn exuberant visual poem reflecting the life and politics of the Chilean poet, Neruda is much more than a simple biopic.
- 85TheWrapClaudia PuigTheWrapClaudia PuigNeruda raises thought-provoking questions, offers no easy answers, and does it in with top-notch performances and a cinematic style that is intellectually, artistically and thematically compelling.
- 83The Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaThe Film StageGiovanni Marchini CamiaAs radical a reinvention of the biopic as Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, Neruda is Larraín’s most conceptual and also his most demanding film yet. Like Haynes, Larraín attempts to create a hybrid between his subject’s art and biography, and, like Haynes’ film, Larraín’s is generally more fascinating than it is enjoyable.
- 80The GuardianBenjamin LeeThe GuardianBenjamin LeeNeruda takes a lot of wild chances and, like the poet whose life acts as inspiration, it’s unwilling to play by the rules. Dizzily constructed and full of more life and meaning than most “real” biopics, it’s a risk worth taking.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe film at times is more playful than illuminating, but it's also a handsomely crafted and boldly idiosyncratic contemplation of a great artist for whom political compromise was anathema.
- 80Screen DailyAllan HunterScreen DailyAllan HunterIt is often very funny, unsettling and yet still proves illuminating on the character of Neruda and the battle for Chile in the 1940s.