54
Metascore
11 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88Slant MagazineSam C. MacSlant MagazineSam C. MacThe hegemony of history is rigid, but Lou Ye is still able to disrupt it in the form of its representation.
- 80CineVueJohn BleasdaleCineVueJohn BleasdaleSaturday Fiction certainly demands patience, shrouded at first in a smog of exposition.
- A movie stuffed to bursting with sumptuous movie-movie atmosphere, the swoony charge of ideas about art, love, and espionage, and good-enough storytelling solutions.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThe Hollywood ReporterBoyd van HoeijThis moody, black-and-white period piece always intrigues, even if it only intermittently catches fire.
- 60The New York TimesDevika GirishThe New York TimesDevika GirishStar power is a logic unto itself, and Lou has ensured a limitless supply by casting Gong as an actress-spy. She conveys depths of pain and longing even when the script offers none, seducing us as effortlessly as Jean seduces her enemies.
- 58IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichMesmeric but frustrating ... An explosive third act shootout may be the most remarkable sequence that Lou has ever shot, but all of the hard-boiled fireworks in the world can’t diminish the feeling that he can’t identify his muse on a canvas this big.
- 50Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleLos Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAs convolutedly scripted by Ma Yingli, and pushed around by the restless camerawork, it’s primarily a spotty fusion of spy-story contrivances and diffuse themes of truth and artifice, although the playground is plenty evocative.
- 40Screen DailyJonathan RomneyScreen DailyJonathan RomneyThe narrative would be sufficiently daunting to follow if the film didn’t make such heavy play on the thin line between fiction and reality; the frequent blurring between the two Saturday Fictions – Lou Ye’s and Tan Na’s – is muddily executed to begin with, without the play being so unconvincing as a piece of stage drama.
- 30TheWrapSimon AbramsTheWrapSimon AbramsThis sleepy and visually murky black-and-white drama belabors the same banal truisms about memory and role-playing during wartime –basically, it’s impossible to maintain your autonomy when you’re only a pawn in a complicated game — and tends to be more interesting to think about than to watch.
- 20VarietyJessica KiangVarietyJessica Kiang[A] grandiloquently incoherent misfire