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Movies / Upcoming / Death In Love
Death In Love

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Death In Love (2009)

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Reviews Counted:18

Fresh:9

Rotten:9

Average Rating:5.1/10

Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: From writer-director Boaz Yakin (FRESH, REMEMBER THE TITANS) comes a provocative psychosexual tale set at the crossroads where family, history and sexuality collide. This shockingly visceral and... From writer-director Boaz Yakin (FRESH, REMEMBER THE TITANS) comes a provocative psychosexual tale set at the crossroads where family, history and sexuality collide. This shockingly visceral and explicit portrait of a family on the verge of destruction exposes the ties that can so dangerously bind us – erotically, psychologically and emotionally.

The story follows the tale of two brothers (Josh Lucas and Lukas Haas) who are trying to climb out of the shadows of their Holocaust survivor mother’s (Jacqueline Bissset) dark past – and the love affair she conducted with a Nazi doctor while in the camps.

Decades after their mother’s experience, which left her blurring the lines between pleasure and pain, the sons’ lives still reverberate with the damage. One (Lucas) is a sharp, charming, intensely sexual but loveless con artist working in an exploitive modeling agency, while carrying on a carnally extreme relationship with his boss (Vanessa Kai). The other (Haas) is a brilliant but reclusive pianist unable to venture from the house. But change has come upon the family. The reclusive brother is moving out of his parents’ home for the first time; the ambitious brother is about to make a deal with an alluring new business partner (Adam Brody) who promises to jump-start a new life; and their mother finds herself pursued by a treacherous figure from long ago. As duplicity, moral compromise and the ghosts of the past haunt their vivid sexual and emotional relationships, the family careens towards a shattering catharsis.

DEATH IN LOVE is written and directed by Boaz Yakin and produced by Yakin and Joseph Zolfo. The co-producer is Alma Ha’rel. The behind-the-scenes team includes Danish cinematographer Frederik Jacob (GHOSTS OF CITE SOLEIL, AFGHAN MUSCLE), editor John F. Lyons (SAVAGE GRACE), production designer Dara Wishingrad (STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING), costume designer Sue Gandy (DECEPTION) and composer Lesley Barber (A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS, MANSFIELD PARK). --© Screen Media [More]

Starring: Adam Brody, Joshua Lucas, Lukas Haas, Jackie Bisset

Starring: Adam Brody, Joshua Lucas, Lukas Haas, Jackie Bisset, Emma Bell

Director: Boaz Yakin

Director: Boaz Yakin
Screenwriter: Boaz Yakin
Studio: Screen Media

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Reviews for Death In Love

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1 - 18 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Boaz Yakin's dark drama is about the legacy of pain.

Full Review Source: Screen International | comment Comment
01/25/08
David D'Arcy
David D'Arcy
Screen International

Even as the frustrated audience can already see the truths, secrets, and manipulations congeal around the characters, they seem impotent to stop being victims.

Full Review Source: Film-Forward.com | comment Comment
07/18/09
Nora Lee Mandel
Nora Lee Mandel
Film-Forward.com

A strangely indulgent and highly personal film seemingly crafted less as a piece of entertainment than a work of expression from an increasingly conflicted artist.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
07/17/09
Wade Major
Wade Major
Boxoffice Magazine

Death in Love is occasionally pretentious but always riveting.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
07/17/09
Gary Goldstein
Gary Goldstein
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Yakin and his cast are up to the job, but the current they tap into is so charged it proves overpowering. Still, their bravery is commendable.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
07/17/09
Joe Neumaier
Joe Neumaier
New York Daily News

There's something seriously wrong when you assemble actors this good -- and can't believe a single stilted word coming out of their mouths.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
07/17/09
Lou Lumenick
Lou Lumenick
New York Post

How do you explain a movie as hermetic and perverse and ultimately repugnant as Death in Love?

comment Comment
07/17/09
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The story of miserable people living miserable lives without redemption, humor or hope.

Full Review Source: Critic's Notebook | comment Comment
07/16/09
Robert Levin
Robert Levin
Critic's Notebook

A raw and uncompromising drama with considerably limited appeal ... leaves a lasting impression, though it's rarely easy to watch.

Full Review Source: Metromix.com | comment Comment
07/16/09
Geoff Berkshire
Geoff Berkshire
Metromix.com

It's not as if we learn anything or feel any insight or catharsis from watching his characters destroy themselves and others.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
07/16/09
Christy Lemire
Christy Lemire
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Survivor’s guilt jumps a generation in Boaz Yakin’s bleak family portrait, an incendiary journey back into the psychic horrors of the Holocaust.

Full Review Source: Time Out New York | comment Comment
07/15/09
S. James Snyder
S. James Snyder
Time Out New York

The failure of the movie is hardly attributable to Lucas, or co-stars Jacqueline Bisset and Lukas Haas. I’m afraid the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of writer-director Boaz Yakin.

Full Review Source: New York Press | comment Comment
07/15/09
Mark Peikert
Mark Peikert
New York Press

What makes pretentious, low-budget-indie filmmakers think the world is waiting breathlessly to absorb their personal memoirs like groundbreaking new recipes for meatballs?

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
07/15/09
Rex Reed
Rex Reed
New York Observer

A fascinating mess: sprawling, passionate, conflicted, confused...It may not be a film with a lot of clarity to its vision, but it definitely has vision, which is rare.

Full Review Source: Hollywood & Fine | comment Comment
07/15/09
Marshall Fine
Marshall Fine
Hollywood & Fine

A stagy, melodramatic, and downright effective story about the way a mother's pain is passed on to her brood.

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
07/13/09
Harvey S. Karten
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve

A pretentious and stilted but weirdly compelling blend of sins-of-the-parent saga and horror movie.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
07/13/09
David Edelstein
David Edelstein
New York Magazine

Apparently so personal that it feels as though it were hatched in a hermetically sealed capsule, Boaz Yakin's Death in Love is as ambitious as it is stultifying and deadly to watch.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
01/29/08
Robert Koehler
Robert Koehler
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Pierces the senses.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
01/25/08
Duane Byrge
Duane Byrge
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 18 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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