Rotten
Escobar: Paradise Lost, as promising as it often is, feels like two barely connected half-movies.
Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture
Overview
Hanieh, a young teacher, lives in the household of her married sister in Tehran. Increasingly exhausted by her paralysing everyday life and the two-faced reality she subliminally experiences as a woman, an employee, a younger sister, and unhappy partner, Hanieh struggles to find her way out.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Rotten
When you have the fortune of landing an actor like Del Toro, it's almost criminal to spend so much time watching the scales fall from an innocent's eyes when we could be watching a master actor convey quiet, sleepy-eyed, mumbling menace.
Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times
Fresh
Nick might usurp most of the screen time, but it's Mr. Del Toro, face flickering from benevolent to vicious and body heaving with literal and symbolic weight, who seizes the film.
Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Fresh
Hutcherson, who's best known for being overshadowed by Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games series, is equally dominated here. But that suits the unequal relationship of guileless Nick and calculating Pablo.
Mark Jenkins, NPR
Rotten
Benicio del Toro is a looming, larger-than life presence in this smaller-than-it-deserves, 1980s drama.
Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
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