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The Long Day Closes

Play trailer Poster for The Long Day Closes PG Released Sep 12, 1992 1h 24m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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82% Tomatometer 22 Reviews 77% Popcornmeter 250+ Ratings
A shy youngster copes with the pressures of school and home life in 1950s Britain via the local movie theater.

Critics Reviews

View All (22) Critics Reviews
Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader A masterpiece. Rated: 4/4 Jun 2, 2022 Full Review J. Hoberman The New York Review of Books The Long Day Closes is essentially Davies's distilled recollection of himself at 11, a seemingly friendless child in a dismal working-class Liverpool, transfixed by his experience of the cinema. Mar 7, 2019 Full Review PJ Nabarro Little White Lies Terence Davies' most underrated work: a cinematic hymn to the echoes and sensations of childhood - a paradise gained and lost. Rated: 5/5 Oct 30, 2018 Full Review Farah Cheded A Good Movie To Watch A dreamlike pool of sensory recollections from [a] lonely boy’s childhood, assembled according to the strange logic of memory... Intensely, painfully intimate, this is one of the best and most unbearably sad evocations of memory in cinema. Oct 14, 2023 Full Review Armond White Out Magazine If asked to name the greatest gay film ever made, I’d say, with no hesitation, The Long Day Closes written and directed by British auteur Terence Davies. May 25, 2022 Full Review Philip French Observer (UK) The Long Day Closes affords the viewer a sublime cinematic experience and rounds out a body of deeply personal work by taking us back to its beginning. Mar 13, 2021 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (51) audience reviews
helder f The film is a work of great sensitivity, serving as a reminder of the fragility of childhood. The movie shows the inner world of a young boy as he struggles to make sense of himself and his surroundings and achieve connection with others . Like any other phase of life, childhood is not a universal experience—it unfolds differently for everyone. While the boy struggles, others seem to have it all figured out. His family is gentle and well-meaning but not able to shield him from the world's harsher realities. He appears to find comfort in movies (which we never see), but their music is played frequently and poignantly.. The movie does not go anywhere, as it does not follow any sort of conventional narrative, but it does not need any narrative. Instead, it unfolds like a poem, centered on capturing this boy's inner world. In that sense, the film lacks the inspiring tone typical of a coming-of-age story, But we are able to hold this boy and hope that whoever he turns out to be will be happier than he was. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 12/26/24 Full Review Audience Member A young Britain boy is trying to make his way through the world directed by Terence Davies In the mid-1950s Bud is lonely and quiet but finds much solace sitting in rapture at the local movie theater He watches towering and iconic figures on screen Bud is given the strength to go through every day as he deals with his oppressive school environment to his burgeoning homosexuality A lot of this ends up being a drag to watch There's so many long establishing shots without that many edits The main character ends up being so uninteresting Maybe more out if this works fantasy sequences wouldve helped liven things up The story ends up being very meandering Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 05/29/23 Full Review Audience Member Give it a 3-star for its music, otherwise 2-star for its story. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/16/23 Full Review Audience Member Meticulously crafted with each sequence suffused with a distinctive kind of light, often muted or mediated through the rain; on the soundtrack, there are snippets of film dialogue or songs and unknown noises transposed over the more diegetic sounds. This is director Terence Davies' personal reverie, bespeaking of a lonely childhood, brightened occasionally by the cinema and by family bonds with preoccupied older siblings and a widowed mum. The stillness of the moments is often broken by singing, sometimes low and distant and personal, and occasionally religious or from the heart, collectively, as in Davies' previous film (Distant Voices, Still Lives; 1988). But the overall feeling is cold, not warmly nostalgic, but chilly and apart -- the staged and constructed nature of the shots adds to this sense of detachment. There is often pain and torment, from stern schoolmasters and schoolyard bullies - and friends who carelessly exclude. Yet, the film is still wondrous, a series of high-culture poetic moments with low-culture British tenement life as their ingredients (alongside audio from The Magnificent Ambersons, Great Expectations, Meet Me in St. Louis, and the Ealing Comedies as clues to decipher or totems to worship). Almost too personal to share, if it weren't for its deeper common humanity. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member I may not have grown up in Liverpool in the 1950s but yeah, this is exactly what it feels like to be a sad lonely gay kid from a very Catholic family who takes solace in movies. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Audience Member http://filmreviewsnsuch.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-long-day-closes.html Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews
The Long Day Closes

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis A shy youngster copes with the pressures of school and home life in 1950s Britain via the local movie theater.
Director
Terence Davies
Producer
Olivia Stewart, Angela Topping
Screenwriter
Terence Davies
Distributor
Alta Films S.A., Sony Pictures Classics
Production Co
British Film Institute, Channel Four Films
Rating
PG
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 12, 1992, Wide
Release Date (DVD)
Dec 15, 2010
Box Office (Gross USA)
$21.7K
Runtime
1h 24m
Sound Mix
Surround