Lulu: Film 2014

Critics have been divided. Some, like Variety ’s Peter Debruge, praise it as “a bracing, necessary corrective to a century of male-authored tragedy.” Others find it opaque and pretentious. The Guardian ’s Peter Bradshaw called it “an exhausting exercise in style over substance, where the character’s agency is mistaken for the director’s cleverness.”

In the century since Frank Wedekind’s controversial Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box plays shocked European audiences, the character of Lulu has become a cultural archetype: the beautiful, amoral, and ultimately tragic femme fatale whose uncontainable sexuality destroys every man she encounters, and eventually herself. The 2014 film Lulu , directed by acclaimed Dutch filmmaker Maartje Nevejan, undertakes the audacious task of resurrecting this figure for the 21st century. The result is a visually sumptuous, psychologically fractured, and deeply feminist re-evaluation that strips away the misogynistic patina of the past to reveal a raw, heartbreaking portrait of a woman trapped by the very freedom she represents. Lulu Film 2014

★★★★ (4/5) Recommendation: For viewers of Christine (2016), Under the Skin (2013), and Possessor (2020). Not recommended for those seeking a straightforward literary adaptation. Critics have been divided