SummaryGrowing up in the wreckage of post-war Liverpool should be a grim experience for sensitive eleven-year-old Bud. He lives in rain-drenched, lice-ridden impoverishment with his mother and hordes of siblings. The secondary school he's just started attending is a breeding ground for bigots and bullies and Bud's the punch-bag. Yet Davies' film is an o... Read More
Directed By:Terence Davies
Written By:Terence Davies
The Long Day Closes
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
85
User score
Generally Favorable
7.5
My Score
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Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
85
73% Positive
11 Reviews
11 Reviews
27% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
All things considered, The Long Day Closes is a remarkable film -- tender and intelligent, long on mood and short on ''action,'' a cinematic poem that stands head and shoulders above the summer harvest of bonehead action thrillers. [23 July 1993, p.C9]
100
The Long Day Closes is a twice-remarkable film. Once, because director Terence Davies opens his personal bottle of memories and makes them interesting to us. Twice, because, in doing so, he triggers our own memories. [11 June 1993]
100
A singularly beautiful nostalgia piece that radiates with love and sadness, and doesn’t extract one type of feeling from another. It’s a film of aching bittersweetness, impeccably realized, past perfect.
100
The Long Day Closes posits its pubescent protagonist as a tiny camera absorbing and transforming the reality all around him.
80
Strength of Davies’ vision is the crux, and it holds the line to the final, confident fadeout.
60
Though Davies says this is a celebration of what were the best years of his life — he had a doting mum, nice sisters, and school was apparently okay — you'd hate to see what he'd produce if he were depressed, for the overall mood is heavy and glum.
50
The Long Day Closes is very much the visual equivalent of a verse or a poem: beautiful images, but no narrative.
User score
Generally Favorable
7.5
80% Positive
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
10% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
10% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Oct 27, 2022
8
This is an odd situation for me, in that I found the filmmaking techniques more interesting than the subject - but what interesting techniques. The Long Day Closes could have only been a film, and that is saying a lot. It could not have been a book, or a play, or a painting . . . This is mostly a cinematic poem, full of images and music that are both dreary and rich. It follows the lonely life of a serious boy (around 12-14 years old) in urban England during the 1950s, and his interactions with family, acquaintances, school, church, etc. There are things going on in terms of characters and events, but mostly this is about atmosphere. This reminded me of Tarkovsky's "Mirror."
Production Company:
- British Film Institute (BFI)
- Film Four International
Release Date:May 28, 1993
Duration:1 h 25 m
Rating:PG
Awards
Valladolid International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Evening Standard British Film Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Cannes Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
