Salomé Review

Salomé
A filmed recording of Al Pacino’s 2006 Los Angeles production of Oscar Wilde’s tale

by Angie Errigo |
Published on
Release Date:

21 Sep 2014

Running Time:

81 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

Salomé

Al Pacino goes past hammy straight to horrendous as an eccentrically mannered, depraved Herod in this altogether odd film of a 2006 L.A. staging of Oscar Wilde’s decadent play about the Biblical daughter of Herodias, whose rebuffed lust for captive John the Baptist prompts her fabled version of a Judean lapdance in exchange for the prophet’s head. Not least of the weirdness is Pacino’s affected but indeterminate accent amid an otherwise resolutely American ensemble. Jessica Chastain, though, in a performance that brought a stampede of filmmakers to her door, is sensational, mesmerising, mad, bad and intoxicatingly erotic.

Five stars for Chastain. For the film, not so much.
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