85
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe movie's ending is a little too neat for my taste. But in a movie like this, everything depends on atmosphere and character, and "Mona Lisa" knows exactly what it is doing.
- 100ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliIn an era when movies about love almost always invariably devolve into formulaic affairs, Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa stands out as an often-surprising, multi-layered achievement. By offering a rumination on a wide variety of love - real, imagined, romantic, sexual, and platonic - Mona Lisa defies easy categorization and offers a complex and superior one-hundred minutes for all who view it.
- 100Time OutTime OutA wonderful achievement, a dark film with a generous heart in the shape of an extraordinarily touching performance from Hoskins.
- 100CineVueJohn BleasdaleCineVueJohn BleasdaleShines out as a rough diamond, a masterpiece of British cinema undeniably worthy of its classical title.
- 90Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrDirector Neil Jordan (Danny Boy, The Company of Wolves) does a good job of re-creating the dark romanticism of American film noir, and if the project does feel a little like a hand-me-down, it is graced by Jordan's fine, contemporary feel for bright, artificial colors and creatively mangled space.
- 83The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsHis vision is most immediately reminiscent of from the hellish New York of Scorsese's Taxi Driver, but Hoskins provides the crucial difference, spiking the nihilism by emerging from the abyss with a glimmer of hope instead of a thousand-yard stare.
- 80EmpireIan NathanEmpireIan NathanThe world Jordan envisions is desperate, but Hoskins’s human heart offers a lovely thread of hope.
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineMONA LISA is a detailed, thoughtful film that sensitively explores the emotions within its seedy, exploitative milieu.
- 70The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyNEIL JORDAN'S Mona Lisa is classy kitsch. It's as smooth and distinctive (and, ultimately, as insubstantial) as the old Nat (King) Cole recording of the song, which gives the film its title and a lot of its mood. It's also got high style, so you needn't hate yourself for liking it.
- Ultimately, there is something trite at the centre of the movie, most especially in the overuse of Nat King Cole’s haunting Mona Lisa to suggest Tyson’s ambiguity and Hoskins’s puzzlement. But this is almost concealed by Tyson’s sense of desperation and Hoskins’s painful sincerity.