M. Butterfly

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M. Butterfly

R

1993

1h 40m

Drama

Romance

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

36%

Tomatometer

22 Reviews

67%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

René Gallimard is a diplomat from France who has been sent to Beijing. While acclimating to life in China, Gallimard meets and becomes enamored of Song Liling, an opera singer who wears traditionally ornate dress and makeup. The two begin a relationship, but, unfortunately for Gallimard, there is much about Song that he doesn't know. Among the revelations that Gallimard must contend with is the discovery that his lover is a man.

Critics Consensus

David Cronenberg reins in his provocative sensibility and handles delicate material with restraint, yielding a disappointing adaptation that flattens M. Butterfly into a tedious soap opera.

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David Ansen

Newsweek

10/18/2008

The problem is not simply that Lone's drag wouldn't fool a baby. In the magnified intimacy of the camera's eye, it's clear Hwang doesn't really know who these unlikely lovers are. Metaphors can't carry a movie-flesh and blood is what's required.

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

01/01/2000

2.5/4

All of this is interesting, in its way, and yet the film of M. Butterfly does not take hold the way the stage play did.

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Joe Lipsett

Anatomy of a Scream Podcast Network

05/16/2024

2.5/5

Jeremy Irons and John Lone are both doing great work, but the film's reticence to engage with its gender, queer, and even political themes is frustrating. The film is a bad marriage of director and material.

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Steve Warren

Southern Voice (Atlanta)

05/09/2023

On stage, M. Butterfly was quite possibly the best drama since Equus. On screen, it's an embarrassment and a bore.

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Malcolm Johnson

Hartford Courant

04/16/2018

On screen, under the caring but superficial direction of David Cronenberg, the realism of the camera cruelly exposes all the pretenses of this play about a French diplomat who loves a man posing as a woman.

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Paul Brenner

Filmcritic.com

05/17/2009

1.5/5

When John Lone parades around in mascara and speaks in an asexual monotone, the film audience discovers itself staring at John Lone's whiskers underneath his makeup

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Alec B

@Alec97 02/21/2024

It is fair to say that something is perhaps lost in translation from the stage to the screen (intimacy for one) but I think there's a lot of criticism directed at the movie in bad faith. Post The Crying Game the "twist" doesn't make much sense as a major plot point and Cronenberg goes the more difficult and interesting route of having the characters subtly acknowledging the truth.

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Timur B

@woundalism 11/11/2023

ok. the story is good. theatre in theatre.

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David W

@RT91245001 10/31/2023

Cronenberg manages to deliver a lot with the resources and material he had to work with. The story is memorable mostly for its strangeness. I would only watch this again if there were nothing better to choose from.

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Joel G

@RT44654526 05/27/2023

having just watched the film, i am trying to understand what it's actually about and why the characters are both blind and deaf to the world they've been dumped in. the first time that gallimard sees that his butterfly is a man in a suit, it's so without expression or reaction, and the scene that follows between the two is baffling, as though the lack of clarity is added to by the lack of insight in the writing. i'd be very eager to hear from hwang what went wrong, what he may have imagined that didn't make it into the final cut.

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thiago r

@FlashTommy96 11/06/2022

Final extremamente surpreendente. Não esperava nem de longe um plot daquele.

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07/27/2022

The greatest 01 hour: and 40 minutes ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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David Cronenberg

Director

Jeremy Irons

René Gallimard

John Lone

Song Liling

Ian Richardson

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Barbara Sukowa

Jeanne Gallimard

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Synopsis

René Gallimard is a diplomat from France who has been sent to Beijing. While acclimating to life in China, Gallimard meets and becomes enamored of Song Liling, an opera singer who wears traditionally ornate dress and makeup. The two begin a relationship, but, unfortunately for Gallimard, there is much about Song that he doesn't know. Among the revelations that Gallimard must contend with is the discovery that his lover is a man.

Director: David Cronenberg
Producer: Gabriella Martinelli
Screenwriter: David Henry Hwang
Production Co: Geffen Pictures, Miranda Productions Inc.
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Romance
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 29, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $1.0M
Runtime: 1h 40m
Sound Mix: Surround, Stereo

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