Bleak Street

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Bleak Street

2015

1h 40m

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

58%

Tomatometer

24 Reviews

38%

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

Prostitutes Adela and Dora are burdened with bad marriages and financial problems. To make ends meet, they drug and rob dwarf twins working as luchadores.

Critics Consensus

Opulent and odd, Bleak Street isn't quite weird enough to work.

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Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

The Blue Lenses

While undeniably outrageous at times, Bleak Street also takes its protagonists and their plights seriously. Like many of Ripstein's previous films, there is real grit and dirt within his desaturated poverty-riddled scenarios.

Aug 25, 2018

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Walter V. Addiego

San Francisco Chronicle

Although the movie doesn't flinch at presenting a dark and unsavory portrait of a down-and-out slice of humanity, it also detects a glimmer of something more in the characters, nudging the story in the direction of tragedy.

Rated: 3/4

Mar 10, 2016

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Mike D'Angelo

AV Club

The true story that inspired it raises eyebrows, but those raised eyebrows are all the film provokes, as well. That just isn't enough.

Rated: C+

Jan 21, 2016

Full Review

Nicholas Bell

IONCINEMA.com

Having lost none of his penchant for the odd and bizarre, Arturo Ripstein's Bleak Street is a formidable late-career gem from the Mexican auteur.

Rated: 4/5

Sep 11, 2020

Full Review

Elissa Suh

StageBuddy.com

Ripstein has a careful, benign hand, free of caricature and sentimentality. His feat is in the storytelling; the stripped down version of the preposterous story reinforces its tragedy.

Mar 16, 2020

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Steve Erickson

Gay City News

No one gets away unscathed in "Bleak Street"... but no one seems beyond redemption either.

Feb 15, 2018

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Audience Member

Arturo Ripstein's film is a rather unpleasant true crime story (based on real-life events) relayed through an art house aesthetic that's often technically impressive, but rarely memorable. Shot in stark black-and-white without a soundtrack, the film is clearly going for a minimalist trajectory, but the style doesn't much but make an ugly story uglier. It just sorely lacks the character development for us audience members to really care about the decadence, nor does it find a way to make the material cinematically interesting. A noble effort, but it's not likely to be mistaken for art.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

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Arturo Ripstein

Director

Patricia Reyes Spíndola

Adela

Silvia Pasquel

Doa Epi

Arcelia Ramírez

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Alberto Estrella

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Alejandro Suárez

Max

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Synopsis

Prostitutes Adela and Dora are burdened with bad marriages and financial problems. To make ends meet, they drug and rob dwarf twins working as luchadores.

Director: Arturo Ripstein
Producer: Walter Navas
Screenwriter: Paz Alicia Garciadiego
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Spanish
Release Date (Streaming): Sep 29, 2017
Runtime: 1h 40m