Fresh
What's fascinating is that it is the very restrictions the story imposes on a director that allow Schnabel to turn it into such an eerie stunner of a movie.
Bob Mondello, NPR.org
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Let your imagination set you free.
2007 · 1h 52m · PG-13
Drama, History
Directed by
Julian Schnabel
Overview
Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.
Director and cast
- Julian Schnabel Director
- Mathieu Amalric as Jean-Dominique Bauby
- Emmanuelle Seigner as Céline Desmoulins
- Marie-Josée Croze as Henriette Durand
- Anne Consigny as Claude
- Patrick Chesnais as Dr. Lepage
- Niels Arestrup as Roussin
- Olatz López Garmendia as Marie Lopez
- Jean-Pierre Cassel as Father Lucien
- Marina Hands as Joséphine
- Max von Sydow as Papinou
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
94%
Tomatometer
Fresh
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of the best movies of 2007, but I'd argue it's also the one most in tune with what this season of goodwill and tolerance is supposed to be all about.
Peter Howell, Toronto Star
Rotten
Optimistically, Schnabel would like to fill such an ordeal with color, music and hot nurses. Wedding himself to Bauby's real trauma, though, seems beyond him.
Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
Fresh
An exquisite metaphor for the redemptive power of cinema. Without an ounce of cheap sentiment, this true story is as profoundly moving and dreamily beautiful as any film in recent memory.
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Fresh
It's a subject and a film that perfectly blends the tragic with the triumphant.
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
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