33
Metascore
4 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 50Screen DailyLee MarshallScreen DailyLee MarshallDeep down this is a conventional and predictably plotted period drama about a clash between bodice-ripping passion and social mores.
- 40The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawWriter-director Isabel Coixet has taken a real-life love story from 20th-century LGBT Spanish history and turned it into something bafflingly passionless, joyless and excessively tasteful, an anti-alchemy assisted by stately monochrome photography that makes every frame look like a postcard from an art shop.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterClarence TsuiThe Hollywood ReporterClarence TsuiSadly for a story so fraught with desire and violence, Elisa & Marcela is painfully lacking in frisson and danger. Despite competent performances from her two young stars, Coixet fails to inject the girls’ relationship with complexity, tension and conflict. In the end, they are ciphers in a message-driven movie, which is made worse by contrived one-liners and gestures.
- 30VarietyJay WeissbergVarietyJay WeissbergA dully made, frequently ridiculous eye-roller shot in standard issue black-and-white that gussies itself up as a brave clarion call for gay rights.